Mid-October, the gentle swell of the sea beneath us. The anticipation is palpable. In the heart of the Mediterranean, the temperature is still mild. It is a calm morning, and the air scents of salt and the promise of adventure. The sun hangs low, casting a golden light over the vast expanse of the sea.

The water shimmers like a thousand scattered diamonds, its surface occasionally broken by the gentle rise and fall of waves. In search of tuna feeding activity our eyes gaze where the sun kisses the sea, trying to spot any anomalies in the flat blue desert.

The distant scene reveals at first, quick and fleeting, elusive like a fading memory, sharp and clear, then blurring into the haze of the boundary between earth and sky. As the boat approaches, the feeding frenzy becomes more and more evident.
Seabirds wheeling and crying. The sardines swarm, small and frantic, glittering like a river of quicksilver, darting in every direction to escape the hungry jaws below and above.

I start slowing down the boat about five hundred meters away from the bait ball. But the burst is already fading. The birds lift off, scattering into the sky, and the splashes from below begin to die down. The excitement slips away like a tide.

The boat silently drifts on the last of the motor's push. I start casting. In the water, the popper hiccups and gurgles in the wake of the vessel. A violent strike and the rod bends, the reel screams. Something pulls twenty meters of line in a wink.

Even if the fish is feeding deep, the popper is able to lure them up to the surface. The false albacore, aka little tuna (Euthynnus alletteratus), are known for their line-stripping 65 kmh runs and striking silver-blue sheen. These pelagic predators, often mistaken for their larger cousins the tuna, are a prized catch for the anglers.

There is a good moment with several catches and attacks, then it goes still. Around 5 PM it gets chilly. Before going back to the marina I head towards open sea, where in the distance I see two lonely gulls, rocked by the waves, they idle doing nothing than lazily floating up and down.

There is no sign of fish activities, regardless I circumnavigate a large perimeter around the two birds. I steer the boat between 5 and 10 nodes and drift my popper at 25 meters afar. A sudden tug and the next false albacore pulls like a train.

After an amazing day with fantastic scenarios, at the end of the day I feel like I've learnt two things: presence of few lazy birds sitting in the water may be a sign of fish presence underneath, even without apparent feeding activity. Tuna feeding deep can still be lured by very visible and noisy flies.

Two home-made poppers that worked extraordinary well in lack of proper feeding frenzy. On the left a 2/0 sardina popper, on the right a 7/0 marine beast. Use saltwater robust hooks because even smaller fish may bend other thinner sea-trout or alike salt-proof hooks.