Well what can I say, but wow! Easily one of the best days fishing and I only landed a fish and credited with an assist. The morning started slow, I had a bit of a pop but wasn't holding my breath about getting a GT to come up from the depth so Jack and Myself used some plastics and I got myself a nice Yellow Fin Tuna which was quickly released. We went for a cruise around to see what we could find further north, this took a couple of hours and we fished plastics down deep again for little avail. Dad made a call to head back towards Straddie, with nothing really going on at the 35's it wasn't a hard decision. We made a cruise past some of the wave buoys and jack managed to get himself a nice little Mahi Mahi, which was a first for him and the first I had seen in person. This fish was probably not more than a couple of months old, Mahi have a really rapid growth rate, as well as some awesome colours.
We then made our way back to Straddie and boy did it go off. We found ourselves in the middle of a Tuna feeding frenzy; with Yellow Fin ranging from 25-45 + kilograms it was awesome to see these fish feeding so hard. Dad was casting the trusty Daiwa 80TN with an FCL Labo TS180, again Jack and I were using plastics. Jack hooked up first, then Dad straight after, my line was over both of theirs so I was tentative to work my lure then the inevitable happened and I hooked up to a solid Tuna that went screaming off. I was wearing gloves at the time and could feel the heat coming off the spool of the Exist as the Tuna peeled line off the spool, poor little thing. Jacks hook up resulted in the hook straightening and he lost the fish, we think it was a nice GT as the jighead and hook came back with some savage teeth marks. It was then Dad and myself and Dad had his fish fairly under control but mine would not stop going, I got jack to try to reverse up on it but that didn't help and I put too much pressure on the fish and my knot failed, pretty gutted with that but that's fishing...
Dads fight was winding down as mine ended and I could see some colour and it was a good GT. After a bit of a struggle the fish was boated and some pictures were taken and then the fish was released to fight another day.
After this it's all a bit of a blur to be honest. But we found the key to get good strikes from the GT's was to cast at the Tuna schools and we had countless strikes. Dad hooked himself a big Bronze Whaler, which was a menace and really gave him some stick at the side of the boat. Removing the hooks was also very fun but after a bit of surgery we got his trusty FCL back.
Dad and Jack also had a double hook up, both coming from a tuna school. After "doing the hard yards" Dad flogged his fish off to me thinking it was another shark that he had hooked and Jack was struggling a bit with the thing he snagged and requested for the gimbal as this fish was putting some hurt on him. I got my fish up and it was a nice GT which I think Dad wasn't stoked about when he found out but once he saw Jacks he was fairly well focused on getting that in the boat. This was a good introductory into GT fishing for Jack and really got to know what its like fighting them and how they use their enormous profile with the current and put some sting on you. I was oblivious as to what was going on trying to tail the GT I had on and ounce getting one hand on its tail and then another the hook fell straight out of its mouth, I quickly put out a yell to try to get a hand on landing this fish as one good tail flick and it could have been gone, wondering what was going on I looked over my shoulder to see a monster GT laying on the deck, well that's what they were doing but then Jack quickly grabbed a glove and we boated mine/ Dads fish.
What a sight, seeing two GT's on the deck of the boat, I have never thought I would see the day, especially around here as its pretty tough fishing and one fish is usually a good day.
With some rough estimates we figures Jack's GT was about 40Kg, easily a PB and a great catch for him. I can't complain with not hooking and landing one myself I had four strikes that didn't result in a hook up on surface but the whole experience was just awesome! Landing three GT's in once day off Straddie is pretty impressive and seeing those huge Tuna jumping and swimming up to the boat was the icing on the cake.
I just hope we can have another chance to experience something similar, I think I would try to get some footage or at least a lot of photos of the action, it was tough today cause it was really mayhem with so much adrenaline running and all I wanted to do was get buckled over the side.
Thanks for reading,
Tom
http://tomsfishingblog.com/
