Yellowfin Tuna & Sea Habit Deceivers
The following is an excerpt from Bluewater Fly Fishing, a book that be available for the first time in digital format sometime in April of 2025.
I caught this 58-pound yellowfin tuna (pictured below) while fishing with Ray Beadle and Captain Mike Frenette, owner of the "Teaser" charter boat service in Venice, Louisiana.
Venice, a small Mississippi Delta town literally at the end of the road, supports both a huge commercial fishing and shrimping fleet and the ships that supply the workers on the numerous offshore oil rigs.
The Mississippi River deposits nutrient-rich sediments into the Delta, a huge and immensely rich nursery for shellfish and baitfish. Inshore gamefish such as spotted weakfish (locally called speckled trout), drum, and redfish are abundant in the shallows. Offshore, the oil rigs (each the size of a city block) hold gamefish like a magnet.
Mike Frenette has been a leader in developing the sports fishing in this area. He took Beadle and me to flats that held redfish weighing up to 20 pounds and speckled trout in the 5-to-8-pound range. My first "trout," at a little over 7 pounds, was a world record in the International Game Fish Association's 10 kg class tippet category.
Beadle and I sampled some of the world's best offshore fly fishing when Frenette left Venice's Cypress Point Marina in the afternoon and drove his 41-foot cruiser for four hours to reach a floating drilling rig anchored 50 miles offshore in bluewater 3,000 feet deep. Here we took skipjack tuna weighing from 8 to 10 pounds on flies and learned that 20-pound skipjack aren't uncommon. After the sun went down, we found blackfin tuna in the 8-to-15-pound range. (Frenette told us he had taken six blackfin tuna over 30 pounds.) By dawn the yellowfin were averaging 50 to 80 pounds, and bluefin tuna, too large to believe, were hitting trolled plugs and spooling the two mates on Mike's heaviest stand-up gear:
One bluefin tuna ran off 800 yards of Line against a drag set at 26 pounds. Frenette said many of the bluefin would weigh over 500 pounds-not exactly fly-rod gamefish.
The yellowfin tuna made leaps ten feet or more out of the water - behavior I'd never observed before in tuna so large. As soon as a tuna hit one of the trolled plugs, Frenette would take the boat out of gear, throw churn over the side, and Beadle and I would cast. We both hooked large tuna in this manner: Beadle had the unfortunate luck of hooking a tuna that simply couldn't be stopped. The yellowfin I hooked hit a Sea Habit Deceiver in the Anchovy Green pattern tied on a single 7 /0 Gamakatsu hook. Using a Sage 14-weight rod and an Abel 5 reel, I needed a little more than an hour to land the fish.
This area has tremendous potential for the inshore and offshore fly fishers. Wahoo are regularly taken in the 80-to 90- pound range. White and blue marlin are the principal billfish. Other "oil rig" gamefish include cobia, kingfish, and jack crevalle.
I tie the same patterns for Sea Habit Deceivers that I tie for Sea Habit Bucktails. The only difference is that the tail of white bucktail is well mixed with pearlescent Flashabou, and the two to six white saddle hackles are set on each side over the bucktail. I then shoulder these hackles on each side with a bunch of pearlescent Flashabou mixed with a few strands of silver Flashabou. Just as for the Sea Habit Bucktails, I tie in a heavy underbody of pearl Flashabou. These construction features aren't appreciated until the fly is wet, for then the Flashabou comes through to really bring the fly to life.
For specific patterns, see Sea Habit Bucktails in the Anchovy Blue, Anchovy Green, Herring, Sardine, and Flying Fish patterns.
I typically fish these variations of Lefty's Deceiver in sizes 1 to 7 /0. As with the Sea Habit Bucktails, I usually tie the fly on Owner and Gamakatsu bait hooks, and the Owner Spinnerbait hook in 5/0. As tied with a Sea Habit head of Mylar piping that has been twice coated with 5-Minute epoxy, the fly is head-heavy. If connected to the leader with a loop knot, the fly will tip head down between strips. If given slack, the fly dives dramatically, the long saddle hackles and pearl and silver Flashabou fluttering behind. In this attitude, the Sea Habit Deceiver in the Anchovy Blue pattern loaded with silver Flashabou is the most effective fly I've ever used for wahoo and large tuna.
In sizes 1 to 3/0, I use Witchcraft decal-type eyes. In sizes 4/0 to 7 /0, as single hook patterns, I epoxy on doll eyes, either 7mm round eyes or 10mm oval eyes. These eyes don't prevent the fly from diving, and they keep the fly on an even keel when it is stripped in.
I tie a Sea Habit Deceiver in two patterns-the Green Machine and the Dorado-that are not listed among Sea Habit Bucktails, because I tie them only in the Deceiver style. As a single hook dressing, the Green Machine is a pattern worth tying for dorado, dogtooth tuna, and a variety of inshore gamefish. As a tandem hook fly, it's an excellent billfish pattern. The Dorado pattern in 3/0 to 5/0 fishes well for both inshore and offshore gamefish.
Pictured Below (click to enlarge): (1) The author and the Yellowfin Tuna described in this blog entry, and (2) a fly plate of various Sea Habit Deceivers (two of which are described in this blog entry (once enlarged, you’ll see a caption of each fly in the fly plate)
