Species 05. Thunnus obesus
Bigeye tuna fishing in the Canary Islands
The deep one. The bigeye has the largest eye of any tuna for a reason: it hunts in low light and at depths where the others do not go. That single adaptation dictates when we fish for it.
Overview
In the Canaries this fish is called tuna, and the word patudo, which on the Spanish mainland means precisely this species: is used here for bluefin. Ask for patudo in a Canary port and you will be understood to mean something else. ICCAT code: BET.
Its defining feature is the eye, disproportionately large. That is not decoration: it is an adaptation for hunting in low light and at depths the other tunas do not work. Everything else follows from it.
The fish we see run from roughly 20-30 kg to over 100 kg, depending on season, area and concentration. Even a mid-sized one gives an intense fight.
Bigeye is stockier than the yellowfin, with an enormous eye adapted to gathering light. It spends much of the day deep: often below 300 metres, and rises towards the surface at dawn and dusk.
It is a cooler-season fish for us, and it is the tuna that most rewards fishing at unsociable hours.
Where
Where to look
Deep water and structure. The bigeye holds where the bottom drops away sharply and where the deep scattering layer rises at night, bringing its food with it.
This is not inshore fishing. Expect a run and expect to work depths that need the right gear.
Best islands for this species
How we fish it
How we fish it
Live bait presented deep, at the level the sonar tells us the fish are holding. Reading the sounder properly is most of the work here: there is no visual clue at 400 metres.
We plan bigeye days around first and last light, because that is when the fish come up into a range we can fish efficiently.
The "avería", and why we do not run bigeye-only days
Here a large concentration of birds feeding over a bait ball is called an avería. It is the signal we look for hardest: birds working in numbers usually mean tuna underneath, pushing bait to the surface, and those are the situations that produce several strikes in one day.
The other half is bottom structure. We work drop-offs and deep oceanic water where the bottom falls to 500 or 1,000 metres: although the fish uses different layers of the water column depending on hour and light.
And we rarely go out for one species. The strategy is to work the tuna routes and concentration areas, which raises the odds of finding more than one in a day: a bigeye area may equally give you yellowfin, albacore or other pelagic tuna. That is not a consolation prize: it is how tuna grounds actually work.
Techniques, depending on activity, depth, sea state and bait: trolling, spinning, popping, jigging and dead bait.
Fishing Intelligence
Conditions we look for
Bigeye is the species where bathymetry outweighs surface temperature. We work the sharpest structure we can find and let the sounder decide the depth.
Questions
About bigeye
Why so early?
Because the fish is deep in daylight. Fishing bigeye at midday is possible but far less efficient: we would rather leave at five and be over the drop at first light.
Is it harder than yellowfin?
Physically yes. Bigeye fight deep and they do not give line back easily.
We don't wait for the fish. We follow them.
Book a bigeye day
Send us your dates and the species you are after. We will tell you honestly what the ocean is likely to be doing.