Three barrels came in at Port MacDonnell today, this one a thumper at 142kg!
Another barrel, this one 98kg, caught by Joel Clark on 24kg tackle, caught off Port MacDonnell on the first fishable day of the 33rd Port MacDonnell Tuna & Sportsfish Tournament.
The barrel action continued today off Portland – off Cape Nelson around 50-60m. Brett Cooter with Tom and Jack landed one of 93kg first up this morning, while Mark, Paul and Andrew caught one at around 87kg in the same area. Reports also filtering through of other hook-ups on big tuna, along with plenty of school size fish.
Four people were lucky to be rescued by a passing fishing boat after spending an hour clinging to a 6.2m boat approximately 2 miles off Portland. The boat capsized when the group who were going Tuna fishing decided to turn back due to the weather conditions around 6am on Sunday 4th May 2014. A passing fishing charter came across the four in the water clinging to their boat about an hour later. They were taken on board and returned to Portland where the Coast Guard was notified. Portland Coast Guard were sent to retrieve the capsized vessel which was a hazard to other vessels in the popular fishing area. It took the rescue vessel CG17 nearly 2 hours to tow the vessel back to Portland for recovery. Spokesperson from the Australian Volunteer Coast Guard, Jason Power said “This is a good reminder of the merits of carrying an EPIRB (Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon) or PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) which can be used to raise the alarm immediately and get search and rescue services to your location as quickly as possible.”
A couple of days ago Geoff Verhoeff and Jo Rowland had a good morning off Port Fairy, with a 14kg schoolie and three gummies around 4kg.
