First Report of the Season
October 10th, 2008GEMINI Fishing Report – Batemans Bay NSW South Coast- 7 October 2008
Albacore, Albacore, Albacore!!! They have arrived. This long weekend, despite the weather condition, the warmer waters moved in close to the continental shelf and so did the fish. With reports of a couple of 50kg yellowfin tuna being caught in the week before and with a couple of Albacore thrown in for good measure, a couple of boats ventured out on Sunday. RUMPUS ROOM from Batemans Bay managed 31 Albacore and were back at the marina by 1:00 o’clock! Not a bad effort when you consider there was only two people on board.
For GEMINI we tried our luck on the Snapper early in the morning on Sunday but the fishing proved slow with the strong current having moved in. So we decided to head out to where the action was out on the shelf. As soon as we hit the shelf with the lures out the action came thick and fast. Unfortunately, most of the fish were only in the 4 to 5 kilo range but still provided a great deal of fun for the clients who had never experienced game fishing before. My deckie decided that given the size of the fish he wanted to put out some lighter gear so that the clients could experience the thrill of a more even contest between fisherman and fish, given that all the previous fish were caught on 15 and 24kg outfits. Unfortunately the only lighter gear we had was what we using to catch snapper, so out went a seven foot 8kg threadline outfit. Not what I would consider ‘game gear’. As Murphy Law would have it, less than five minutes later the reel screamed and the rod bent over SOLID. The poor client, John picked up the rod and just held on as the rod screamed. Our thoughts of a small Albacore faded as the fish continued to take line. After some coaching on the pump and wind approach we started to gain some line slowly. At the 30 minute mark the deckie called colour and we looked down and about 4 metres below the boat was a huge yellowfin tuna well over 35 kilos with its bright yellow sickles curved well back doing circles in the current. “You have got to be kidding” was my initial reaction however my reaction some what changed to “we don’t have a chance in hell” when the fish took off on another powerful run pushing the Penn Spinfisher reel’s drag system to the limit. The client’s back was aching and he just could not gain any line back. He would gain 20cm of line and then lose 3 metres. And this went on for another 40 minutes!! Then the inevitable happened, the line broke! That’s fishing.
The next day the fish were everywhere from about 70 fathoms out to the shelf. The best method was trolling very small lures no bigger than six inches in any colour. However, green and black proved the colour of choice. So get out there, with these fish probably hanging around the bay for the next month or so.
See you on the water at Batemans Bay!
Steve Wearn
GEMINI FISHING CHARTERS
