Subject: tuna in the bay
Date: Thursday, 10 April 2008 2:22 PM
G'day yakkers
This is the third Thursday in a row where we've harried the local pelagics.
As agreed, several of us turned up this morning: Jaro, Harvey, his son Tim (in my spare Espri), and I. The wind was 10-15knots from the SE and we could see that it would be pretty uncomfortable out at the reef but we could also see birds working with accompanying splashing just off the beach, where conditions promised to be quite pleasant. So, of course, off we went, launching through a clean, small surf in bright sunshine.
Jaro was the first with runs on the board, announcing that he'd boated (or should I say yakked), a mac tuna. Shortly afterward he paddled over to me, just as a school showed its presence nearby with wheeling birds and copious splashing. We both cast and I hooked up, but my fish managed to cunningly get my taut line in the way of Jaro's lure. It took a tense minute or two for me to bring his lure to the tip of my rod, then disentangle it from where it then became hooked in the second runner from the tip (how DO lures get into such places) while still maintaining sufficient pressure on my fish to keep the hook in place. But it came clear and shortly afterward I boated a mac tuna.
There were clearly more than one species working the bait schools as Tim reported losing a lure to a possible spotty mac (cut off during retrieve after casting to a school) and both Jaro and I caught several Leaping bonito (Cybiosarda elegans) -- see pic below.
We gave it away about 0930-ish having never been further than about 800m from launch, paddling through schools of feeding tuna and bonito as we left the open water for the surf zone, which all four of us transited without incident. I managed a pic of Jaro, but not of the others as they went in before I did.
My mac tuna was 57cm long and weighed 2.5kg.
We're hoping to get out to JS in the next few days -- Seabreeze gives us some hope for that.
Kev
Red & Yellow Espri, black paddle
VHF channel 09, Call Sign: sunshiner
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