Best Tuna Trolling Lures of 2026

Six 6.5-inch skirted lures in a mesh bag, acrylic heads with lead inside, PVC skirts, and 7/0 Mustad 2X hooks. On paper it's the same recipe as most of the sets here — the difference is what you know before you open the bag.

You know the colors. Plenty of sets ship a random assortment because nobody chose what's in them; this one shows the six shades on the listing and sends those, which matters when you're matching a spread to water color, light, and whatever the fish have been hitting. That certainty is why it sits near the top of this group. The 6.5-inch skirt also gives a slightly bigger profile than a straight six without leaving school-tuna territory, which is where most tuna trolling actually happens.

Rigging is the part to check. Crimped mono is the first thing to fail on an inexpensive rigged lure, and a slipped sleeve costs you the fish you waited all morning for. Pull hard on each leader at the dock, re-crimp anything that looks pinched or replace it with your own, and the hooks — stout 7/0 Mustads — will do their part.

Six lures also means you can afford to lose one. Run the bright shades early, darken up as the sun climbs, and keep the set in the bag between trips so the skirts dry straight instead of folding into a kink.

Most lures in this group expect a boat trolling at a comfortable pace. The Madmacs expects you to push the throttle. At eight inches and eleven and a quarter ounces it's the heaviest single lure here, built around a through-wire frame and an HD ABS body, and it's meant to keep swimming straight when lighter lures are blowing out.

What we noticed first is the hardware. BKK Diablo 5X singles in 11/0, rigged and ready, corrosion-resistant — that's a hook you otherwise buy separately and crimp yourself, fitted to a lure that's already set up for the fish that pull hardest. Nothing here needs re-rigging before it goes in the water.

It's heavy, and that's the trade. On a rod that can't load it, it casts like a brick and trolls like a chore. Put it on tackle rated for the weight and it does the job the skirted lures can't: it keeps fishing when you're running hard for albacore, bluefin or wahoo.

Thirty feet is the number that earns this lure a place on the page. Most skirted lures work the top foot or two of water; the X-Rap Magnum 30 is a 2-1/2-ounce sinking plug whose lip drags it down as you troll. Rapala's 30-foot figure assumes a particular speed and amount of line out, and it moves as those change, but the point stands: it fishes where the others don't.

The action is a slashbait dart rather than a steady wiggle — it kicks sideways and flashes, the sort of thing that pulls a strike from a fish that has already refused a skirt. Two 4/0 VMC Perma Steel hooks hang off it, the hardware is built for saltwater, and the Purple Mackerel finish gives you a dark, flashy profile that reads well in blue water.

The position we use it in is the deep line, the one that keeps working when everything else is running high and the fish are sulking. Give it a rod that can load 2-1/2 ounces at trolling speed and it fishes all day without wearing you out. If you already own skirts, this is the single lure that changes what your spread can do.

There's no crystal head, no holographic film, and no skirt. A cedar plug is a tapered piece of wood with a hook behind it, and it has been catching tuna since long before any of that existed. Three of them arrive rigged on 150-pound mono, with a black bag to keep the set together.

What we appreciate is what it doesn't have. Nothing on it chips, peels or shreds, and the streamlined body sheds weed instead of collecting it, so the lure keeps fishing while a skirted one is being cleared and re-set. On a long, slow day that difference adds up to more time in the water.

The trade is presentation. A cedar plug swims straight and it swims quiet, and there are afternoons when a loud skirt gets the bite and this doesn't. Run it alongside something bright rather than instead of it and let the fish tell you which one they want.

The head is the whole story: a metal jet head with a heavy-duty skirt behind it, which is a different proposition from the clear plastic chuggers on the other sets here. Six of them, six inches long, arrive rigged on 150-pound mono and packed in a black bag.

Nothing to assemble and nothing to crimp, six to a bag — this is the least expensive ready-to-fish set on the page and the easiest one to say yes to when you're filling out a spread. The bag keeps the set together between trips, and the skirts protect the hook from collecting weed while you troll.

Uniformity is the trade. All six are the same head in the same finish, so this is a set for covering water rather than for working out which color the fish want — for that you need a mixed bag like the kmucutie. What you get instead is numbers: six lines can carry six of these without a second thought.

The role we see for it is the one every boat needs: lures you put out when the fish are up and the teeth are sharp, where losing one to a wahoo is an annoyance rather than an event. Run them short and long, and let them do the hunting.

Three ounces in a six-inch body, with a center-of-gravity transfer weight built in: the Alwonder is designed to be cast a long way and then dragged fast behind a boat. A one-piece stainless wire runs the length of it, the 7/0 hook hangs off an enhanced split ring, and the laser-painted finish throws light in every direction.

High-speed trolling is hard on tackle, and this is the least expensive way here to find out whether it suits your boat. It will troll fast, it will cast a long way for a lure this heavy, and it will twitch on the surface if that's what the fish want — a useful thing to have on board when the spread has gone quiet.

The through-wire matters more to us than the paint job. The hook is connected to your line rather than to a plastic body, which is the difference between a lure that comes back and one that doesn't. Buy it to try the technique or to replace a lure you lost, and put a swivel on the front.

Thirteen inches is not a subtle lure, and it isn't meant to be. This is a big-game trolling lure aimed at marlin, wahoo and the larger end of the tuna family — the one you put on the long rigger when you're hunting something with shoulders rather than adding another school-fish lure to the spread.

The build is what you're paying for. The head is crystal-clear resin that resists chipping and yellowing, with an abalone shell insert cut by laser to fit, a machined stainless insert that keeps it pulling straight, and a skirt hand-tied with waxed rigging floss over holographic film.

One lure per order means one lure per order: there's no spare in the bag if a wahoo takes the skirt off, so it's a pick for the rod you care about rather than a set you deploy across the transom. Fish it on a heavy outfit with a leader to match and it does a job a six-inch skirt simply can't.

The finish is the part that stays with us. Abalone under clear resin looks nothing like a painted head, and in clean blue water that difference is the whole reason a big fish commits. It's the one lure here that feels hand-built, and on a big-fish spread that's worth the space.