On Cassius Cray we took the punt and headed due south off Warrnambool today hoping to find tuna, and were not disappointed, ending up with 7 up to 25kg from about 9 hookups, keeping 6 to go around the 4 families and friends. The tuna were in mostly between 200-400m depth, and nearly all took hard bodied lures, both bibbed and bibless, with one on the bright yellow and orange feather way back in shotgun.
Peter Bishop got his first tuna in the same area from a 3-way hook-up, which weighed 40 (pounds!). Richard Goodwin, with his dad Reg, had a baptism of fire for his introduction to tuna fishing, getting spooled straight up, his reel being relieved of its 300m of line in about 20 seconds! The situation was soon rectified with his first tuna of around 25kg shortly afterwards!
Dave and Melissa Magilton also caught, and released, good numbers in the same area.
Great signs for the next 2 weekends as Warrnambool plays host to the second annual GFAV sanctioned tournament, the South West Alliance Gamefishing Challenge, with fishing from Warrnambool and Port Fairy.
Entry forms here – get involved in this great fun tournament.
Ed and the boys on the Seacruiser 7000HT were also out off Warrnambool, slightly further out but in the same general area, and had any amount of albacore, catching plenty and keeping a few, along with a nice blue eye and other bottom fish for the table.
Note the loaded up rod in the background. Multiple hook-ups were the norm!
Martin and his crew got these from a 3-way hook-up off Warrnambool.
Port Fairy saw more tuna come in today, although a few apparently drew blanks as well. Sue Fergeus caught a ripper mako, weighed in on the WOLGFC scales, dragging them down to 105kg, gutted.
There were a lot of boats off Portland today, and some reported good numbers of tuna, although ones and twos were more common, with a few missing out. Sometimes, while the really calm days are no doubt pleasant, they can also be slower when it comes to tuna fishing. This, combined with greater boat traffic driving over the schools and sending them down, can result in less numbers being caught. The tuna we caught off Warrnambool had been feeding on tiny whitebait about an inch long, not sure about those at Portland, but when this is their food source it’s another factor which can often make it hard to “match the hatch” when most of the lures are much larger, and it’s another reason why, despite having tuna busting up and birds working, that sometimes they just won’t take a lure…
Adrian Azzopardi fished off Portland again with Simon and Manny, starting the day with a double after 20 minutes trolling but unfortunately it seemed that the fish got pushed deep from then on.
Having said all that, this 60kg ripper got weighed in at Portland today. It’s unusual to see bluefin here in the 40-80kg range. A great fish – well done to the boys on “Prime Time”
Sarah Cue, Kev McLoughlin’s better half, landed her first mako shark off Portland today, her and Kev didn’t find any tuna so they reverted to what Kev knows best and as per the norm, came home with the goods!
Darcy Wilson caught a nice flattie off Torquay today