For the past ten years I have been chasing these powerful creatures on fly tackle. With fish hooked and landed up to one hundred and sixty pounds, one thing I have learned is that there is no room for error. To start with, ensure that all of your knots and leaders and in perfect condition. Limit the amount of connections between the fly line and the leader. If you are not fishing IGFA, go with a six to eight foot straight shot of thirty or forty pound monofilament tied from the tip of the fly line to the fly. If I have guests that request to fish IGFA standards, I use RIO’s Tarpon leaders. These come in three packs and are hand tied with twenty two pound class tippet and can be ordered with shock tippets from forty to one hundred pound.
RIO’s Leviathan Fly lines. These come with breaking core strength of over seventy pounds and are built specially for big game fish as they load quickly and easily. For Bluefin here in the northeast, the 500 grain sink tip and the 500 grain intermediate tip seem to work best when matched with fourteen and sixteen weight rods.
