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Scott Maybury

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Tuna Jigging - Sydney
October 06, 2008, 05:17:29 PM
Hi guys,

Some mates and I went out wide off Sydney on Saturday following reports that the yellowfin were back with the warm current that had pushed down from the north.

We headed out and set the spread to find the fish about 12 miles out. By the time we hit 16 miles we had a double hook up on 'fin (having run into sime small stripeys before that).

We started a berley trail. A few of us (me included) pulled a few fish on bait, but with the fish seeming pretty thick a few of us threw on some metal jigs and one guy put on a plastic.

In no time we had landed some yellowfin and small albacore on both the jigs and the plastic. They were not huge fish, probably averaging around 10-12kg, although the largest for the day at 15kg was taken on plastic. We landed some 20 yellowfin, 4 or 5 albacore and a few small striped tuna at this spot, about 75% on jigs and plastics.

Once things quietened down and the fish left we  trolled over to Browns Mountain were one guy picked up another tuna on the cubes. I was using a pink 230 gram River2Sea jig. After being taunted by the charter skipper who said he wanted Blue Eye or Gemfish for dinner I asked how deep we were. Approx 500m was the answer.

Not one to shy from a challenge, and overly optimistic frim our earlier success, I starte letting out a lot of line...I got about 400m out before I sensibly decided that with current my 230g jig would not reach bottom, even with the 600m odd of braid on the Stella 20000 spool.

I started a jig retrieve and after less than 50m something jumped on solid! You could have knocked me over with a feather, and some of the other guys who had been laughing wiped the smiles off really quick, because the fishing had become very slow.

The retrieve was a mongrel, luckily this was no monster although it did manage to take a small amount of drag and almost run me under the boat when I got it to the surface..it was an albacore around the 6 or 7kg mark. I proceeded to hook up and land the same sort of fish on my next 5 drops into the 300 - 400m zone. This made the guys who wanted to take some albacore home very happy and was an interesting end to the day.

All in all we landed around 40 fish between 6 of us and the conditions were good so it was just a lot of fun. I also got to try out my new Smith AMJ 54M with my stella 20000, neither of which has seen anything other than a rat kingfish yet, and I was really pleased with the way the outfit went. I am confident of landing some serious fish on it over summer and next year in New Caledonia.

Oh, and next time, I will make sure I have some heavier jigs and lighter line for more capacity, because i am pretty sure I could get a Gemfish to take a jig.....









Last Edit: October 06, 2008, 05:19:13 PM by Scott Maybury

Andrew Poulos

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Re: Tuna Jigging - Sydney
October 06, 2008, 08:51:22 PM
Nice fish there. We went out today - passed the schools of stripeys and headed towards the shelf. Trolled for nothing , then found a temp break and set out cubing. And of course, after getting a nice trail going, we could see clouds building down south. Coast guard warnings about a front moving up from Port Kembla and 40knot winds saw us leave the cube trail and head back in. And then the rain hit...geez, rain hurts when your on a boat trying to make it in and the rain is pelting down. Stopped and spun up a stripey in the middle of the rain and then came in. And of course, the rain stopped and weather cleared up  >:( >:(...
Really do hate Sydney weather !

Scott Maybury

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Re: Tuna Jigging - Sydney
October 06, 2008, 09:54:56 PM
Mate that is a bummer. We headed out saturday despite some 50/50 weather reports and were rewarded. It was lumpy early heading out but basically once we started trolling after we hit The 12 Mile it flattened out and there was little wind. We got rained on a few times but it was only some drizzly showers.

I am sure it was annoying for a lot of guys because most people had picked Sunday as the better of the two days...I know my dad did, fishing Sunday for a while then throwing in the towel.

Next time mate!

Andrew Poulos

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Re: Tuna Jigging - Sydney
October 07, 2008, 07:23:44 AM
The lightning we saw turned us off a bit , especially when running rocket launchers with graphite rods up top...hopefully get out there again soon.

Of course today is picture perfect  :'(

Scott Maybury

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Re: Tuna Jigging - Sydney
October 07, 2008, 08:54:18 AM
Yeah I am looking out the window at work through the heads, and its making me feel a bit sick because I know the tuna are on out there

MikeOsborn

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Re: Tuna Jigging - Sydney
October 07, 2008, 12:07:02 PM
great report scott

izzy

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Re: Tuna Jigging - Sydney
June 10, 2010, 08:14:02 AM
wow.. nice..

Jamie Moir

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Re: Tuna Jigging - Sydney
June 10, 2010, 10:01:39 AM
Some fun sized tuna there!

Plenty more tasty things than those gemfish down there if the skipper has the right spots!

James Taylor

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Re: Tuna Jigging - Sydney
April 25, 2011, 08:58:10 PM
Any news on the arrival of the tuna this year?

Dave Hudson

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Re: Tuna Jigging - Sydney
April 25, 2011, 10:52:31 PM
Sounds like a great day out scott....nice work!