Where’s the action?
Posted By: David Smith
on February 13th, 2005
I will start off by saying “It’s here again!” The East Australian Current (EAC) is slowly making its way down the East Coast of Australia. Tuna are around the Continental Shelf off St. Helens, but have been very “patchy” so far.
At the time of writing this I have just got back in and unfortunately it was a fishless day for us and many other boats. Today, one boat lost a Yellowfin at the boat and the Skipper said it was a very nice fish. A number of Albacore were caught and one of the fish weighed in at 15Kg on 10Kg line. Other Albacore caught weighed in at around 10Kg.
Mid-January saw the capture of a 50Kg Yellowfin Tuna. Well done to the crew who landed such a nice fish. For those of you who don’t know, it is not uncommon for Yellowfin of this size to be caught early in the season. You might have to put in a few fishless hours on the water but you can get lucky. Other boats out on that day only landed some small Albacore.
If I cast my mind back to December, a crew fishing off the North West coast landed a very nice Mako Shark on 15Kg. I think this shark was around the 180Kg mark and was above the previous Tassie record of 146Kg. I will have to wait to see if the angler will follow through with the record claim.
Shark fishing has been good off the North West coast. A number of big Makos have been landed and I have heard recent reports of a shark weighing 280Kg being weighed.
Back to the East Coast now, and it looks like the temperature off the Shelf is around the 18°c mark and reaching 19°c up around the Eddystone patch.
Over the last fortnight, numerous juvenile Yellowfin have been landed and unfortunately, Albacore are still only small (with the exception of the aforementioned). On the 8/2/2005, a 41Kg Yellowfin was caught.
Good luck for the season and I will endeavour to keep this news up-to-date.
|