Tassie’s best Yellowfin season in 15 years
Posted By: David Smith
on April 19th, 2005
This article has been along time in the making and I hope you take the time to read it:
Since early February, Yellowfin captures have exceeded the expectations of all anglers. One of the first Yellowfin boated was very large, weighing in at 69Kg. This was the start of things to come. On the 16th February, the Hillcrest Caravan Park tournament saw two Yellowfin weighed in at 33Kg and 29Kg. The word of large Yellowfin had started to filter throughout the Tasmanian game fishing community and boats from all over started to make the trip to St. Helens.
Continuing through February and into March, many Yellowfin were fought and lost. The first week of March saw the crew aboard ‘Animal’, skippered by Jason Williams, losing a very big tuna after one and a half hours with the hooks pulling free. A week later, the Skipper made up for this loss and boated two very good tuna. These fishing weighed 54Kg and 50Kg. This was a great achievement by the crew as there were only two people onboard and both fish were landed successfully with Jason ‘leadering’ and gaffing his own fish! Another catch worth recognition was the success of the local fishing charter landing a fish of around the 60Kg mark and losing another fish of similar size the day before.
In week leading up to the annual St. Helens Game Fishing Classic, one lucky crew landed a 59Kg Yellowfin and a 144Kg Striped Marlin in the same day!
The annual St. Helens Game Fishing Classic saw another great turnout of 92 boats fishing Tasmania’s biggest tournament. A 52.8Kg Yellowfin was weighed in and this fish rightly won the ‘Heaviest Game Fish for an Outboard Powered Boat’ category.
The upper East Coast of Tassie has shared the success of large Yellowfin with it southern counterpart, Eaglehawk Neck. Reports of tuna over the 50Kg mark being caught in late February. These fish have rivalled in size with some of the Southern Bluefin Tuna being caught over the last few years.
On the week leading up to Easter, a few lucky boats tangled with Yellowfin on Merricks Reef with Good Friday being the best day. The weather on Good Friday really got the tuna into a feeding mood. A strong Southerly whipped up the east coast and that’s when “Merricks” fired up. We were trolling only 800m from St. Helens Point when we caught our first juvenile Yellowfin, we could not believe our eyes! 200 meters on, we caught another. Then a double hook-up! All these juvenile Yellowfin were T&R. We hoped for a bigger fish as we heard that a boat was fighting a descent Yellowfin. After two hours of getting the odd hook-up of Yellowfin (we lost about 10) one reel finally ‘screamed’ and we all knew we had a descent Yellowfin. The fish put up a good fight but unfortunately we lost him at the boat. We all agreed that the fish was around the 30Kg+ mark.
Accepting the previous loss, 30 minutes had expired and we had a double hook-up of quality Yellowfin. Both of these fish took two 24Kg rods and after pushing up the drag to strike both fish powered on. After 5 minutes one line was “cut-off” by another fish, allowing us to concentrate on the other fish. The rough 4m seas caused by a 35-knot southerly breeze, moved the boat quickly up the coast. We had covered about two and a half miles when the 40Kg Yellowfin was finally boated. There was much jubilation aboard ‘Runadu’ as this was our heaviest Yellowfin landed to date.
Heading in to the powerful southerly wind and accompanying swell, we moved slowly back to the strike zone, giving us time to check the rods for another crack at the Yellowfin, however, some time had passed and the fish had dispersed. Being grateful for what we had just landed, we decided to call it a day.
The weather had calmed off during Saturday and Easter Sunday and this also calmed the Yellowfin. There were a lot of Striped Tuna caught along with a few large Albacore and I can only recall one small Yellowfin being caught. The highlight on Saturday was the capture of a 95Kg Striped Marlin. This marlin took the honours in the Easter Competition.
On Sunday afternoon after a very quiet day on the water, we decided to pack up the boat and head home early on Easter Monday, however the Sunday night news reported that the weather on Monday was going to be southerly again with winds up to 25knots. We all looked at each other and thought we had better start prepping the boat!
The crew, Clinton Howe, my brother Stuart Smith and myself didn’t get much sleep that night as we were all hoping that Monday was going to produce the similar quantities and quality Yellowfin as we had experienced on Good Friday.
We hit the water at 7:30 and headed straight for Merricks. After about two hours we moved out wider towards ‘the Shelf’. I was driving when I cam across a very strong current line. The temperature on one side was 17.6 and the other was 18. This was quite significant so I started to troll with the direction of the swell and current. After travelling about 3 miles when we had a nice double hook up of juvenile Yellowfin. Once again these fish were tagged, photographed and released. We continued trolling for another hour north and then started to head for the boat ramp. Twenty minutes later we had a nice 10Kg Albacore hit the shotgun lure (That one didn’t make it back to the water).
When almost back to Merrick’s Reef we heard on the radio that a boat had landed one of their biggest Yellowfin around the 5mile mark. That’s where we had previously hooked the small Yellowfin so I scrolled through the waypoints on the GPS and locked in a direct line to that area. We were suppose to be back at home by 12 o’clock and being 11:30am already we though we better wind the rods in and plane to get there quicker.
Arriving at the waypoint, I knew we were in the right area because I ended up on the aforementioned current line and once again I pointed the boat north trolling with the current.
Fifteen minutes had expired and I noticed our mates on ‘Animal’ so I manoeuvred the boat around in his direction. Both boats were only 100metres apart when a pod of dolphins came ‘bounding’ towards our boat. I thought it was strange to see these dolphins swimming against the swell as throughout the day I had only seen dolphins swimming with the swell. What happened next was an event I will never forget….
The biggest, heaviest and noisiest rod equipped with a Penn 50SW reel rattled like an old Gatlin gun! Then another rod screamed. When I stopped the boat the long rigger rod bent over as well! The long rigger was on 15Kg line and it just so happened that Stuart picked up this rod, as it was his own rod (This rod in particular is a Shimano TLD50 two-speed with 1200m of 15Kg line). The three of us had our hands full on what we had hoped for, BIG Yellowfin.
Within 25 minutes, Clinton had his fish at the boat and boy was it a beauty. The tuna played up when it had got to the boat and Clinton was doing the “transom shuffle” to keep the fishing line away from the outboard motors and the side of the boat. After 5 minutes we finally had a chance at a gaff shot and Stuart had to hold his fishing rod in one hand and a gaff in the when he took the shot. With the gaff in Clinton could rest, pickup another gaff and jag that in the fish as well. With two gaffs in and the fish was lifted into the boat. Stuart and I could now concentrate on getting our fish in; but mine was never meant to be….
45 minutes of fighting on 24Kg line and I was in the process of bringing him to the boat when the hook finally pulled out of the fish leaving me feeling like I have never felt before. I knew that I had just lost a fish of a lifetime. I had an inkling that this might have happened as I had decent fight with the fish and it was directly beneath the boat. I suppose it is better to loose a fish there than at the boat.
With mine gone, Clinton took the helm and concentrated on getting Stuart’s fish to the boat. Backing down on the fish to retrieve line, the 5Kg of drag wasn’t doing much harm to the fish and the fighting harness had to go on to accompany the donned Black Magic gimbal.
After two and a half hours, Stuart’s tuna was gaffed. His fish was a similar size to Clinton’s. Stuart did a great job to fight this fish for so long and to successfully land the fish.
Heading home we were talking to a couple of people via radio who were keeping in touch with us to see how Stuart was going. We told them that both fish were around the 50 – 60Kg mark and at the weigh station, this turned out to be true. Clinton’s Yellowfin tuna weighed in at 50Kg (cleaned) and Stuart’s weighed 56.94Kg (whole). Stuart’s Yellowfin is pending a new Tasmanian record on 15Kg line. Stuart’s fish beat the old record by 4.5Kg.
Over the weekend the tally of Yellowfin Tuna for our boat is: 8 tagged and released and 3 captured. Not a bad weekends fishing.
In closing, last weekend (9th, 10th April) there were Yellowfin caught again around Merrick’s reef. These fish were reported to be 40 – 50Kg. The weather is cooling down and so it the water temperature so I don’t know how long these fish will hang around but it can’t be much longer. However, it won’t be long and the Southern Bluefin will move in down South. Lets hope the Bluefin have a presence like the Yellowfin have at St. Helens.
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