Troll-Caught
Albacore
Fishing Gear
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Commercial fishing vessels that harvest younger surface-swimming albacore are called "jig boats" because they fish with jigs. They are also called "trollers" since they "troll" for albacore. "Trolling" means to catch fish by towing a lure or baited hook behind a slow-moving boat. In the albacore fishery, trollers attach ten to twenty fishing lines to the vessel's outriggers. These fishing lines are of different lengths and are also spread out along each outrigger to help prevent them from getting tangled up with each other. |
Click the graphic to see a demonstration of how to rig an albacore jig (Flash movie). |
Attached to the end of each line is a jig -- that is, kind of rubbery fishing lure with a hook in it. Jigs are shaped to look like squid and come in a wide variety of colors. The jigs are trailed in the water behind a moving boat, and some albacore will bite a squid-like jig and get hooked. The hooked albacore is immediately removed from the water and prepared for freezing.
Because jigs are designed to catch fish on the oceans surface, they simply cannot reach the older, larger albacore that swim in deep waters far below the surface. This is why other types of fishing gear are used to catch older albacore, and why "troll-caught albacore" always refers to the younger, tastier, Omega-3 rich albacore.