No Billfish but a small Tuna.

Hi there,

So during the week I had a message from my good mate Double Haul from the FFF forum, asking if I wanted to go and try to get something very big over the weekend.
The plan was to hit Fenton patch and North Gutter to hopefully raise some Black Marlin and some Sailfish.
Him and Brooksy set up for the Marlins and I for the Sailfishes...
Guess what I would answer to that?
I am sure that you know by now that I replied: YES!

You see I am yet to boat any billfish. Three times already I had one on the line but every time I lost them before we could tag them.
Billfish is on my fishing bucket list, since a very long time, and even more since I first tried for them onboard Double Haul's boat; about a year ago.

So early we left and we took Brooksy's boat, which is nearly the same as Double Haul's one, but with a centre console instead of a side one.
Also, it is a bright red boat, made me feel a bit like if I was getting in the fire truck...
Another kid's dream.

On my way to work on the Friday morning, I had stopped near the boat ramp from the Ski Club, and the ocean looked beautiful, flat and invinting.
I spend half of the night of Friday not sleeping and hoping for the same condition, and on Saturday morning the weather was just perfect.

We launched from the Night Cliff boat ramp, with not much water, and no wind.
Very quickly we zoomed to the first mark, with the three of us commenting on how the condition seemed perfect. We even saw a booby which is usually a good sign.
Even if we were surprised by the very small amount of Tuna school that we saw on the way.
I was most impressed by the auto-pilot which enabled Brooksy to just type in where we wanted to go, and then we were able to have a chat while the boat took us to our destination, nice and easy.

And soon enough we started to deploy the lines, teaser and outrigger.
They both had these large overhead reel with a swimming queenfish at the end of their lines, while I had and eggbeater with a skipping garfish on the line.
They explained to me that the plan was that my skipping garfish was to distract these pesky Sailfish from the Marlin baits, that they both had at the end of their lines.
Now when they told me that, I started to be pretty confident that we would see some serious billfish action during this trip.
Well as any seasoned angler would know, over confidence is the mother of all deception...
We didn't raise a single billfish for the day, not even a Mac.
Yet I still had a great day, yes as far as fishing goes, I am an easy date...
And unlike a lot of people, I actually enjoy keeping an eye on the baits during the long trolls.

Double Haul and Brooksy.

The long troll started, under a build up sky, hot weather and big clouds in the distance.

We would at time pass a school of Tuna feeding on the surface and would circle around them a few times to see if by any chance a billfish would be with them.

Every time I looked at them Tuna splashing around, and I would think that it would be very cool to throw a chrome slice in the mist of them all... But every time I would as bravely as I could try to remind me that we were not here for the Tunas, but for these fishes with a stick in front of them, the billfish.

I was impressed by the coral spawn that we saw on the surface, it seemed to be immense and in the middle of nowhere. and some little jelly fish like creature swimming in there.

Then out of nowhere, like a bunch of torpedoes some big things came around us, overtook the the boat, and started swimming just in front of it...

They were Dolphins.

Playing in front of the boat.

They did not stay with us for very long, but this was really enjoyable. It is interesting how something as simple as a pod of Dolphin swimming around the boat can bring a smile to everybody on board.

Not long after that we spotted a sea snake on the surface, he was big but dived back before I could take a photo.

A bit further away we spotted a sea turtle that was so big that for a second we were wondering if that was a billfish. 

And no, no one had drank any alcohol on the boat...

When it started to be hot on our head, we put the canopy on, and used the shower/hose to refresh ourself, and we felt renewed and ready for some action. 

Alas, not much was going to happen on the billies front.

Yet the trolling condition were perfect, we could see the storm brewing faraway but the sea was glass.

Some dreams are made of this.

And this glassy sea was about 40 km (24.854848 miles) from the boat ramp.

But with the storm starting to head our way, and the afternoon winds picking up, we decided to turn back and go home.

As we were zipping back we saw some birds diving and sure enough under them was a school of Tuna in feeding mode. 

Brooksy turned to me and said: "Do you want to have a go at them?"

I tried to stay composed and detached, and to give a very calm, posed and intelligent reply: Ho Yes!, in less than half a second.

Didn't even need to think about it.

I was with my spin stick in hands on the front deck before we were even close enough to cast.

First cast: I was thinking that this was a blind cast as nothing seemed to happen but when the lure was close enough to be seen, I could see a few Tunas swimming behind it.

But none were hooked.

Second cast: A few Tunas swiped at the lure on the surface and that was very exciting to see, till one actually got hooked! But I lost it at the boat...

Third cast: a little Tuna hit the lure and got hooked far from the boat, and a few times I believed that I had lost it, because he would regularly swim straight at the boat, and then blot away from it.

In the end it was close enough for Double Haul to grab the leader, and drag the fish in the boat. Where he was quickly put in the esky, and of we went back on our way to shore.

In fact all of this happened so fast, that I realised only once I was cooking this Tuna that I had totally forgotten to make a photo of it....

So here is what it looked like in our plate in the evening, after going through the magic wok.

Yummy fresh Tuna.

And we were in fact right in doing all this fast, as the wind was picking up and we didn't want the storm to catch up with us.

Once back on Terra firma I was once again surprised that the time had flew by us so fast, it felt like we had just left the ramp heading for the horizon a few minutes earlier. In fact we had just spend most of the day on the water.

And even without billfish, this in my book, was still a great day, and I am very grateful For Double Haul and Brooksy to have invited me.

So yes, there is still some serious blank on my fishing bucket list, and Billfish is one of them...

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.  

Longtail Tuna on Spin Gear

Hi there,

I was lucky enough to get invited one more time on Double Haul's boat today.
And it truly was a great day on the water, with my first ever Longtail Tuna on spin gears.
With a lazy start at around 9 am which had left me with plenty of time for a proper breakfast.

We launched from Dina Beach boat ramp, and first went behind the deck chair cinema, where we saw someone scuba diving between the little mangrove trees. Not something that I would enjoy myself, being way too afraid of the crocodiles to do so.
But the action on the fishing side was not really hot, in fact absolutely freezing in the sense that we didn't see a single fish...

So we went to Emery Point, where we quickly got onto some little trevally.
Double Haul must have out-fished me something like 5 to 1 there, but it was still very fun, and we put them all back in the water.
Just as we were on our way to leave the place direction East Point we saw Doors Off which I didn't recognise at first, because he was not in his boat. He told us that he already got a Tuna and a massive GT. I hope he got even more during the rest of the day.

So we went to East Point and didn't see any fish over there either...
And I started to wonder if I should have kept a few of these little Trev to get a feed for my little family...
With the lack of Action Double Haul made the decision to go to Lee Point, and this, was a very good decision.

Not long after we arrived there, we saw a school of tuna breaking the surface.
Before I could get my act together, Double Haul had made a cast and was on!
I was then hesitant to cast as not to interfere with his fish, when he told me to: "Cast in there mate, they are still around".
I did not wait for him to repeat the invitation and my little chrome slice flew trough the air and landed what I estimated to be too far...
So I retrieved as fast as I could thinking that I had missed my chance, and bang I was on too!

I am on.

Double hook up of Longtail tuna. And we boated the two of them!

Double hook-up's result.

Mine took nearly half of the line on the spool of my little reel, and I was wondering when would it stop. Then when he was close to the boat it looked like he was foul hooked by the tail, but no it was because during the fight he had wrapped his tail around my line.
This was my first longtail tuna on the spin gears...
I liked the Mactunas, but now I like the longtail ones even more.

Then I changed lure, I put the same one, but instead of a treble hook at the back of it, it had a single hook, the idea was that as I had secured a feed, I was from now on going to try to minimise the harm done to the fishes, and be able to safely release some...

And we then saw another school of what was very visibly some Tuna, and we casted to it...
And I got a Spanish Mackerel, the biggest one I ever got on my spin gears, and he didn't even cut my line. I had my line cut by smaler ones in the past, so I was pretty happy to boat this one.

Spanish Mackerel on spin gears.

Specially considering that he had the lure so far done his mouth that we had to cut the line before putting the fish in the esky, and I got the lure back only when dispatching the fish in the evening back at home.

We also tried to troll for Macks, but it didn't work.

After trying for Tunas and Macs for a little while more, we finally decided to go back.

So we returned early, before the masses and didn't had to wait too long at the boat ramp. The parking lot at the ramp, had been empty when we arrived in the morning, and now at 3:00pm was full.

So yes, that was a great day on the water, thank again Double Haul, I really had a good time chasing some of my favourite fishes.

And guess what I had for dinner tonight?

Tuna Sri Lankan way in the wok.

Yes I cooked it before Ms. Frugal Down Under and Dolly came back of the Happy Yes Market. And I loved eating it!

And yes I did get slightly sunburnt on the back of my neck.

But hey, It could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

We went Tuna Fishing.

Hi there,

And we got some!

Double Haul invited me to go for a half day chasing tuna around the Fenton Patch.
Yes I know, Double Haul chasing Tuna might sound like an anachronism to some of you, specially when it is not billfish season...
But hey, I was not going to question the invitation!
With my first ever Tuna boated just a fortnight ago, I was more than keen!

So we left the Dina Beach boat ramp early on Sunday morning, with not so many cars in the parking so the launch was rapid and without trouble.

As we arrived to the level of the 6 Miles buoy the water was not as flat as we were hoping for and we tried to drop down some jig a a short while to try to see what we were going to do.
With no bite there the skipper decided to go for Fenton Patches.
And in retrospect, that was a very good decision.

So we start to cruise toward our destination looking for flocks of birds, that would indicate where to found our quarries.

The first flock directed to a school of tuna that would only stay on top for a few seconds.
Basically the time to cast and by the time a lure would touch the water, they would be gone.

So Double Haul sighted another one that was much bigger and zoomed on them.
As we arrived, I was excited, but it was not too bad yet.
So I remembered what he had told me two weeks ago and looked at the direction in which the birds were flying and diving and tried to cast just in front of them, it was a nice cast. Then I did as I had been told: Count to four... And retrieve faster, faster, faster! 
And Bang the line tensed and I was on! 

First cast in this school, and I had a fish on the line!
Double Haul casted too, and got a fish on the line too! It was the first double hook up for the morning!
But only one fish made it to the boat and it was mine... 
The fish gave a nice fight but not as furious as I remembered... 
Was I starting to get blazed? 
No, upon inspection the fish had a wound, from a former encounter with what might have been a shark or a mackerel or something that wanted to do a meal out of him...
But he was going to be my meal and ended up in the esky.

Happy like a kid with a new toy!

At the next school Double Haul was on.
In fact he didn't cast at the school as they had dived by the time we arrived on them, But he saw them swimming in the water on the side of the boat. So he did a rather short cast, and as soon as he started to get his lure back he was on! That was crazy we could see them swimming so close to the boat and so fast! I tried to lob a lure on them a few time but they were no takers. A few follow up, which is nearly as good, but no takers for me.

Then next school, and He was on again, and them me! Second double hook up of the day! 
You could have heard us laugh like to excited kids! But once again just one fish was boated.
But that was still great all this action.

And at one stage speeding from one school to another one, as I was sitting near the front of the boat, at the ready for our next assault, I saw a little sea turtle swimming on the left of the boat, slightly on our left and aiming to our right.
I started to think that the poor little thing was going to attempt to cross our past and started to worry for it and told Double Haul: Hey there is a small turtle just in front! He said what? And by the time I looked at it again it was safely on our right.

It seem that when they want to they can swim pretty fast these turtle...

Then we got some more tuna and Double Haul got as many as I...

At one stage I had a tuna on the deck, and he started to regurgitate (a nice word to vomit really) some of the little fish he had swallowed before taking the lure. I was amazed at how small they were, and then understood why people alway told me that if I wanted some tuna I should use the smaller lure possible.
We made a photo of it, with a little fish in my hand to get and idea of scale... 
So yes I can now say that for "science and mass education" I have had some Tuna vomit on my hand.
I hope that you will appreciate the effort... 

This is Tuna's food, in the name of science...

We then stopped on a mark and dropped some bait while we had lunch.

We then chased some more tuna and started to make our way back.
Stopped again to the six miles buoy o see if we could get a red or two. (Red fish, not red wine...).
But they didn't want to play so we went to the Larrakeya rock wall and looked for Trevally but didn't find them either.
Which as much as I like catching Trevally, did not make me sad at all.
This tuna fishing thing is fantastic and as your at it you don't realise. 
But once you stop, and the adrenaline slow down, I felt spent...
And that was just one morning of it.

So we made it to the ramp were it was pretty calm again with not too many people.
Appart one lady cuting Double Haul trailer, she must have been in a hurry...

So we were back nice and early at around 2:30 and I had 4 tuna in the esky.
So yes this week it will be Tuna week at Pecheur's home.
Lucky me that my family love them as much as i do.

Nice good food!

And because we were early I still had the time to go for my Sunday unicycle lesson...
By bed time I started to think that this had been way too much exercise in a day for me, and just hit the sack like a log.

That was a really good morning and lunch on the water.
And the more it goes the more I like tunas!
I like to fish them, and I like to eat them...

Thanks again Double Haul, I had a really good time.

So we did not see any Mackerel or big GTs.

But hey, it could be worse.
Have a good day,
Me.

My first Tuna.

Hi there,

So it all started as usual, with me dropping my gears at Double Haul house on the Friday evening, after work. A quick little chat about what we were going to do, and this is when things started to change. Double Haul told me to get my spinning outfit, and a tray of metal slugs… You can guess my excitement, not only we were to go and chase Sailfish over the coming weekend, but I was going to be allowed to cast some chrome slices to the rampaging Tuna school that we might come across…
Now, some of you might know, that spinning, is definitely one of my favourite form of fishing, and that I was yet to boat a Tuna… Are you starting to get the clue?

So on Saturday, like before most fishing trip, I woke up before the alarm clock rang, kissed my beloved ones, and was waiting on the footpath for Double Haul to arrive.
Like a kid with a head full of hopes.

He arrived and off we went. The drive to Dundee seemed quick, and the tractor guys know their job and got us in the water in no time. The water was flat and nice.

Flat water.

The plan for the weekend was to spend part of the first day chasing the Sailfish, troll a Mack lure at the same time, (yes I like my Mackerel). And then latter in the day, to reef fish for reefies and maybe some Jewfish too…

So once at the mark we deployed the teaser, and started trolling. As a Mackerel lure I throw behind the boat a spanking Max from Halco thinking that this 80gr, long hard body lure would be the best for the job at hand. In less time than it takes to write it, the rod with the Mackerel lure bent and the reel started to sing! No pulsed by the fact that I was not even holding the rod at this precise time I said loudly: I am ON! Double Haul looked at me calmly and said: that was quick… So as I started to reel in my big Mackerel, Double Haul found himself with the task of getting the other rods and the teaser, all of which had just been dropped in the water, back in the boat. I was the deckie having all the fun while the skipper was doing the hard work… Then he came to my side and asked how I was doing. I said that I was just hoping not to loose this Mac.
Then the Mack started to do one or two circle under the boat. Some of you might start to have an idea of what kind of Mack that was, but to me that was an exciting fish pulling his weight. Then Double Haul asked is it a Mack or a Tuna? Why on hearth would he ask such a thing? I had this big Mack lure at the end of a wire trace, and on the hooks of it was an angry big Mack fighting as good as they do…
Well yes once again the experienced skipper knew before the pumped up deckie what was going on, and the Mack turned out to be a long tail tuna.
Now don’t get me wrong, I was still pretty excited about it. My first tuna, and it was big!
But Double Haul said that it was just a baby and put it back in the water.
So that was no Mack…

Then a Mack jumped with one of the squid from the teaser in his mouth instead of my lure… Like if he wanted to tease me…

Then we saw something strange in the water, and decided to get close and investigate.
It was a group of young Manta ray playing in the water, all swimming in circle, a very nice spectacle.

Then another Mack grabbed a lure behind the boat, but it was a sailfish lure, and it did not hook, but ruined the skirt of it… (What a great line for a fisherman: A Mack ruined my skirt…)
So Double Haul said look at your lure mate, it will scream his T.. off pretty soon. And as on clue the rod bent sharply, but the fish once again did not hook.
So we decided to try to put 2 deep divers in the 8 meters range behind the boat to get one of these Macks.
All the while I would cast a metal slug to the school of tuna that we would come across. This lasted for a little while but for not much results, so we decided to go and reef fish a bit. And on the way to the reef marks Double Haul told me to change my metal slug for one with different colours and if possible just chrome.
I had something like that in my tackle box and did as prompted. We come across a new school of tuna, I cast in the middle of them and bang I am on! My first Tuna on the spinning gear! A Macktuna.

Am I happy or what!

This one will be bait! Now catch another one I was said.
So I tried again and Double Haul too got into the action, and he got one before me then I got another one and he did too again, at the same time. We had a double hook up on tuna…
To say that I was happy and exited would be a huge understatement! After reading so many post on the FFF forum, by Doors Off and others about tuna on spin gears, I was finally in the middle of the action! The sight of the water full of flash as the fish splash and jump the birds diving and then your reel screaming and your line peeling… I want it again!
Talking about birds diving, well a little stern dived a few meters before my lure but got one of her wings all tangled up in my line. So we had to cut the line to let her go, and she flew away, so should not have ended up as fish food.

A bird on the line.

So after a little bit of that we decided to go reef fishing.

And we went to one of Double Haul marks and dropped the bait. Got a few little thing stealing ours bait. Then I got a double with two fish on my line! Ok, one very decent fish for what I am used to, and a smaller one that was to go back in the water. But still that was another cool thing for me to have two fishes in on pull.

Two for the price of one.

I also got my first Grinner, or stargazer, or Monkey fish depending who you talk to. I had never seen one in real life before, and that was cool. What a mouth they have!

Grinners are winners, they said...

Then we got a few little red things with big eyes, and we didn’t know what they were, I should have taken a photo of it. We put them back, but they made me think of Elmo, you know all red with two big eyes… Can you tell that I live with a child?

Then Double Haul said that it was not as good as it should be and that we should go to the jewie mark, and just as he said it my line went very tense. Escaping from the reel faster than I could have retrieved it, and I tried. And the line went very stiff, and the fish had bricked me, taking refuge in a hole or god only knows where, and there was no way I could get some line back. So I gave it a bit of slack and it worked the fish moved! Just to find a better spot where I was to not stand a chance… And we had to break the line…
I don’t know what it was, but it was big!

Then we moved to the Jewie spot. Put the line in, waited a bit for not much action… Then my line again with the rod making a parfait arc, pointing at the water. Once again I screamed: I’m on! Then I started to thing Ho boy this thing can pull, and just then the line broke! Two times in a short space of time I had my line broken by some big fish… And this time it might have been a big Jewie… Ha! I retrieved and show the line to Double Haul, the only thing I could say was Look at the line! I just couldn’t believe that this fish had broken it in such a short fight. Make you wonder of the force in some of them…

Then the storm seemed to zone on us so we decided to head closer to shore to tack refuge for the night close to a beach.

First rain, sign of things to come.

Then Double Haul started to put some snag in a fry pan… Mmmmm the smell of the sausage quietly frying after the excitement of the day and the fatigue starting to quick in… That was pretty close to the best thing possible in the world. They didn’t last very long…

Yummy in my tummy!

Then a little chat and we start to hear some splash in the water. Ho ho why not trow a popper in the dark this direction… I start to do it hoping for a Barra, and Double Haul said something like: That must be a shark…
So I told myself ok just a few cast to be sure what it is…
And that is what I did, honest just a few cast, then a few more, then the five last one, then three more and then ho come on just one more after the next one…
By the time I looked in Double Haul direction again, he was fast asleep on his mattress at the back of the boat…
Once again I had been the over enthusiastic guest who had stretched the limits of courtesy… Sorry.
So I tried to install myself for the night at the other end of the boat, and found sleep in absolutely no time.

Then at around 2am it started to rain and we woke up.
The boat drifted a few times on the chop in the dark. So we had to reposition. Once we were confident that she wouldn’t move any more Double Haul put a tarp at one end of the boat and we stoped to receive the rain in our face. So back to sleep it was.
And believe it or not but getting back in this wet sleeping bag in a rocking boat, in the night, the only thing I could think of was tuna… I very rapidly fall back to sleep, with image of tuna bursting the water all over in my eyes and mind.

Then morning came; hot cafe for him, and chocolate cookies for me, life is great!
We were to try for some more tuna fun, but the water was too rough and that would not have been a very good thing to do.

Yet it was beautiful...

So we decided to try for some reefies and jewie again, and wherever we went, we encountered sharks after sharks, small ones, eating all of our bait.
So still wet and cold from the night we decided to go back home, and arriving close to the ramp, we saw some birds that were diving over a small patch of water but no fish bursting the surface. So Double Haul told me that I should trow a popper in the middle of this to see if I could raise what ever was under… As I was pondering which popper to use, he told me that I should try with one of my ceramic lure. And so I did.
After a few cast, I was on, to a nice feisty little Trevally. We let him go to grow a bit more.

On the lure made of ceramic.

And I continued to cast in the same direction. And as the lure was very close to the boat and I was saying look at the action of it in the water, that’s very nice, one or two, I am not sure fish darted after the lure to give it a miss at the last second. I nearly feel on my bum at the surprise of it, and Double Haul got a good laugh from it.
The after a few more cast I got a wind knot in my line a the lure flew by himself, far away for ever…
So it was decided to go back for good.
So just two sausage rolls and two soft drinks at the shop and we were on the road to Darwin.
All I could think on the way back was tuna on the spin stick and how tired I was…
God this fishing stuff is exhausting!
And this is it folks, the story a quite a few first for me, and of a great trip, once again thanks to Double Haul.

So we did not see a single sailfish for the weekend.

But hey, it could be worse.
Have a good day,
Me.