You're finally on the water...What changes do you have to make to your usual routine in order to accomodate fly fishing offshore?

• The first thing to remember is that your day will likely wind up being a combination of conventional and fly fishing .
  
  courtesy Floyd Sparks
  Unless you are chasing fish feeding on the surface, it will be a rare day that you don't wind up dragging a tuna feather or some other lure behind the boat to locate or attract fish before you break out the long rods.
  
  Trolling with a fly rod is certainly an option, but usually it's easier to troll with conventional tackle, and leave a fly rod "at-the-ready". If you decide to troll with a fly rod for any length of time, get one of the specialized fly rod holders so you don't have to hold the rod.
  
  There is one situation where a fly rod is clearly a good choice for trolling - when fish are feeding on really small baitfish or squid. In these situations, conventional fishermen sometimes resort to trolling bare hooks, or hooks with a few strips of mylar. But a small fly can do much better.
  
  
• If you're pursuing fish that school, it's important to keep fish hooked on the troll on a short leash. If the fish runs off a lot of line, he can take the school with him, costing the fly fisherman an easy opportunity.
  
  To keep this from happening, a heavy outfit (60 lb test or more) is often used, and the fish cranked to the side of the boat as quickly as possible. Steve Cali often uses a commercial fishing tuna hand line. This consists of a tuna feather attached to parachute cord attached to heavy rubber shock cord. The shock cord is attached to a stern eye or cleat. When a fish is hooked it literally can't go anywhere until it is unceremoniously handlined in, so the school stays close to the boat.
  
  
• Along similar lines, don't be too quick to put the first fish into the boat. The splashing and struggles next to the boat will often attract or keep fish close by. Both tuna and dorado are particularily susceptible to this tactic. But obviously keep an eye out for sharks, and avoid losing the fish, which could take the others with him when he leaves.
  
  
• Skiffs have an advantage over large boats when fly fishing floating debris or breaking fish, because a second fisherman can easily cast from the front of the boat. While this is possible in larger offshore boats, it's usually a pain for the second fly fisherman to get around to the bow. Also, since the second fisherman will be a number of feet off the water when they reach the bow, it can be difficult to sink the fly deep enough, and can make retrieving the fly more difficult, especially if there is any kind of breeze.
  
  When approaching floating debris or breaking fish, position the boat to favor the casting hand of the lead fly fishermen. Toy Boat 2 drifts bow-downwind, so if we have a right-handed caster in the bow, we approach on the right side of the debris or surface actitivy. This allows the fisherman in the bow to easily cast at the debris.
  
  Where does this leave the fisherman in the back? If the fisherman is left-handed or can cast left-handed, it's easy - both fishermen can cast off the port side of the boat. If he casts with the same hand as the fisherman in the bow, things get a little more complicated.
  
  The first option is for the guy in back to simply do a backwards cast - He faces away from the target, which places the casting hand on the outside of the boat. He then makes a normal cast, except that the line is released on the backcast instead of the forward cast.
  
  A second option is to simply fish away from the target. Most offshore fish don't collect directly under floating debris. Instead, they are often some distance off the debris. And for fish breaking on the surface, sometimes it can be more effective to place the fly away from the visible melee'. So a cast away from the visible targets is not necessarily a bad thing.
  
  
• If you are moving to a smaller boat from a larger boat, keep in mind that the limited number of fishermen on your boat will affect your ability to handle multiple teasers. Most people run only one or two treasers, and accept the potential for fewer strikes in return for being able to clear the teasers more easily when the fish are found.
  
  As a side note, it appears that there is a growing trend towards using hard-headed teasers with vinyl skirts, instead of soft-headed teasers with soft octopus skirts. Why? It turns out that soft-headed lures are more difficult to pull away from a fish that has really chomped down on it. The same thing applies to the skirts - soft octopus skirts seem to get caught in the fish's mouth more than the old-style skirts fashioned from vinyl upholstery material.

• To chase or not to chase? - The answer to that question needs to be based on the particular situation. But in all cases, you should be ready to go if needed. If you need to follow a fish, be careful about the direction you are headed.
  
  Most offshore anglers realize that the direction their line is headed often is not even close to the direction the fish is headed, due to water drag. With fly gear, the effect is even worse because the fly line creates a lot more drag.
  
  As a result, you don't necessarily want to take the most direct route to close on the fish, because you could be introducing even more drag on the leader. Depending on the distance and speed of the fish, it might be better to follow the direction of the line around.
  
  
• When is "Not Enough" just right? - In the April/May 2006 issue of Bluewater Boats and Sportfishing, David Granville writes about a record-setting trip to the Osprey Bank off Cairns. The article, titled "Simply the Best", describes US angler Hal Chittum's successful attempts to capture some dogtooth tuna records on fly gear.
  
  Dogtooth tuna frequent the edges of coral reefs, and are notorious for using the reef to maximum advantage in cutting fishing line. What Chittum discovered was that if dogtooth tuna are allowed to run under light pressure after hookup, they can often be coaxed to move away from the reef. Once clear of danger, they can be fought with much more pressure. Hal wound up with several fly rod world records for dogtooth tuna on the trip, so the technique is clearly effective.