I headed down with a close mate to get into the schools of blue fin tuna up there. We had just 2 days. First day we manged on the troll 3 albacode but kept working. We where rewarded of a large fish over 75 again trolling. Lost a couple more large tuna cubing this day. You might think wheres he going with this. The forum is for Topwater. Well day 2 we started much the same couple more on the troll and cube about 40 + kgs.
Then it happened. We had Got on to a patch of tuna from 25 - 40 kgs where in they where literally eveywhere. after trying a few different setups cubing it started to be "too" easy.... So i said to my friend why dont we throw a popper at them .
So he did. Bloop Bloop it came in nothing. Cast again....... Bloop Bloop bang Tuna hit it and he was on. He ended up loosing the fish after nearly being spooled.
Excited by the action i quickly pulled out my Shimano GT popping Rod and stella 10000 with a Dorado Slider 140F tied directly to the 50 lb frog braid. First cast wind in nothing. Second cast i saw flashes below . Just as i was pulling the stick bait out of the water next to the boat (lure 2 inches or more out of the water) bang im on. This was my first real success on stick baits with a big fish. After releasing this fish about 30kgs, i was excited to go again but had to first change the trebles to singles as all fish where to be released as we already had out bag limit. From then on every cast or so i was seeing mind blowing hits from tuna and subsequent fights. We fished into the night about 6 pm. Towards the end the stopped chasing the stick bait out wide and would start to chase near the back of the boat. At one stage i let the stick bait bob a few meters from the back and saw the stick bait being smashed countlessly. At this stage i was getting tired so i didnt try to set the hook but more watch on in amazement .
For me this has been the best fishing trip of my life and thought i would share that the tuna can be taken in australia from the surface
cheers
Michael
