Dangas

Hey Rads, Those dishes are pretty simple and easy to do, i dont have any recipes but i can tell you off the top of my head next time i see you. The belly piece is the most tastiest sashimi you will ever eat. In Japan it is highly prized and worth several hundred dollars a kilo. It contains the highest fat content and just melts in your mouth when you eat it. I saved a slab of the belly just for me and gave the rest of the tuna away. I have been resting the meat in the fridge since thursday and it should be ready to eat tonight. Cant wait it should be good. It has taken me two days to clean the boat and prepare the fish, so i can imagine what two fish wouldve been like. My boat was totally hammered, it took 1.5 hours to clean off all the blood and scales.

Hi Stacko, It seemed like the divers were working better than skirts out there. We had a friend who was using skirts and caught nothing, then decided to switch over to x-raps and had a double hook up. The water temps were a constant 19-19.5 degrees. There was no real big temp breaks. There were boats out at Heatons but didnt hear much caught out that way. I think there were more caught just wide of the 500 Fa. But things change everyday, and tomorrow they might be further out or closer in. I think a good plan would be to set the lures at Browns and make your way to Heatons until you find something. Thats what we did.

Formosan, we used 3 lures in the spread. I would normally run 5 but only had 2 on board and it would have been too much if we had a multiple hook up. That day i had 2 x rapala xrap 30's and a Zuker feather. The rapala xrap in purple got hit on that day. Ive got a Suzuki 4 stroke 115hp and my onboard computer showed that i used 75l that day. It would depend very much on engine size, boat load, and weather conditions. I have a 160l fuel tank and most big trips out wide would not use more than 80-90L on my boat. Hey Quintrex, yeh its been a tiring few days, i spent most of yesterday cleaning up the boat and the tuna. There is nothing like SBT sashimi. The meat is so fatty and full of flavour. It was like butter in your mouth. But the best would be eating the sashimi today, because it tastes best after its been aged for two days to develop the flavours and texture.

What a hectic run of Bluefin off Sydney it has been over the last few weeks. Its been incredible, i have never experienced anything like this. The last few weeks have been painful having to read all these reports of Bluefin from my work desktop. Thursday was finally the day. Loaded up the boat with the heavy gear with the plan to head "east" till we find the fin. We put the lures out about 2nm west of Browns. About 1nm to Browns we see a couple of terns scouting around and a bit of bait, then ZZZZZZZZ .... one of the rod goes off with a massive run. This was a BIG fish, definitely no stripe tuna. Within a minute of picking up the rod, the fish throws the hook. We will never know what it was. We keep pushing east and hook up to some Albacore up to 9kg and heaps of stripe tuna. Still no FIN. We keep pushing east and we are now well over 500fathoms. I see a group of boats including a few charter boats circling an area and we go over to see what the fuss is about. Not much was happening so we did a few laps then made the call to keep pushing east. What a great call because within 10mins we were hooked up. What a RUN The big TLD50 was losing line like it was on freespool. That first run was incredible. The next 1hr 20 mins was spent fighting the fish. Eventually we get it close enough to the boat to get a perfect gaff to the head. We haul the fish onto the deck and high fives all round. My body is now broken, hands shaking and exhausted. There were only two on board and we were both buggered. 65kg of Bluefin was more than enough for a feed so we call it a day and head back in. I have just spent half the day today cleaning the tuna and the boat and doing the rounds to relo's and friends. ITs amazing how fast 65kg of premium bluefin tuna can dissapear. Even the head and bones were taken and used. Here's what i did with some of my portion. I will write more on this in another post. Thanks for reading, and get out there while theyre still around. cheers Dangas

Gotta love those Yamashita warm jackets. They have to be my favourite jigs at the moment. The only problem is that they get smashed up and torn up after every session because they catch so much bloody squid

Damo, yeh it was a nice stripe. Seems like you had better luck on Saturday. Funny how things can turn around in a day. Anyway, good luck for this week. Hope you guys get on to a few.

Damo, Was out on friday too. Was nice heading out but was a little bumpy on the way back in. We set the lures at Browns and headed east to the 1000fa in search of the elusive fin. Ended up with nothing but stripies. I met up with the boat that caught the marlin and it weighed in at 103kg. Was a very nice catch this time of year. The boat wasnt too far from where we were trolling either. Where did you find the albies? Apparently there were quite a few around heatons, but thats a little too far for me. Dang

awesome fin mate, was that caught on the troll? Looks like a carpark out there in those pics.

Better luck next time mate, at least you got yourself a feed. Thanks for the informative report anyway. Im gonna still give it a try this weekend, you never know with tuna.

according to that sea surface image there looks like a good temp break in between browns and the peak right where the plonk hole is. Finin, keep us posted with how you go tomorrow. We are all anxiously waiting for any info of tuna in Sydney. The boys down at Bermagui are doing well with the bluefin atm, so the yellowfins should be here or at least on their way soon.

Nice one, looks like there's still a few big ones around

Very good points... The problem could be that the information on which the quotas are set, may be outdated. Perhaps the quotas set are too high to begin with. This super trawler has a quota set at 18000 tonnes of baitfish per annum. Thats equivalent to about 10000 cars in weight. Thats more cars than all the cars in stock in every car dealership in sydney combined. With fuel prices going up and profits in mind, this super trawler would not be going too far from its port to catch its target. Imagine 18000 tonnes of baitfish being taken from Tasmanian local waters and think of the effect it would have in that area.

Looks like a very dense baitball about 6m in height over hard reef. Possibly a few bigger fish hanging off the ball.

x 2 Very nice firm white flesh and suprisingly not fishy at all once all the bloodline is removed. canh chua & chao ...MMMM... now you got me hungry, Viet food is the best. And Fish Sauce makes everything tastier.

Whats the deal, put all three jackets together and you have a proper feed. LEatherjacket are plentiful anyway. I say lets all eat more leatherjackets reduce the numbers of these pests.

Hi Tony, My missus is a very understanding woman. She knows sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do to bring home the bacon, or in this case the calamari rings.

Thanks buddy, We were downrigging all over the bay, and it was fairly quiet. went to all the usual spots, breakwall, oil wharf drums. The tailors were just shredding up the squid and they were pretty thick on the sounder too. HAHA you can imagine what sort of comments i got from the crew. luckily i had my mouth closed.

Squid Fishing 101: LESSON 1: DO NOT POINT THE SQUID IN THE DIRECTION OF YOUR FACE WHEN HOLDING THE SQUID. Picture of me after i was violated by the squid. Anyway, its all part of the squidding experience and provided plenty of laughs for my crew. There are definitely a few very good sized squid around at the moment. These were caught in Botany last week. Notice some of the squid are almost as long as the bait tank. We ended up filling the tank in no time with squid and headed out to chase kingies, but it wasnt to be. Ended up with squid ripped up by tailor or being taken by rats. This one measured 66cm and was released. After, several squid being lost, we made a call to keep the rest of the squid for a feast. The phone call was made to get the beers and barbie ready and a request was made for some kingfish sashimi by one of the boys at home. Unfortunately we had released the only keeper king so we decided to get the next best thing around and decided to bait fish for a few trevally. Trevally make some great sashimi and i would consider it on par with kings if prepared properly. With 4 trevs between 35cm-40cm in the bag, it was time to head home and wash the ink off the boat (and off my face)

Damn that hurts ... what is the brand of the trailer? And yes it couldve been much worse. At least you had your engine tilted up and your boat didnt fall on top of a Ferrari.

Why take out your frustrations on the poor squids, what did they ever do to you. lol Shame about the donuts mate, we all have those bad luck streaks. I think its just been bad timing for bream on hardbodies and the marlin have moved further offshore with the odd blue being cauht along the shelf and beyond. Looke like there are still plenty of squid around tho. Nice catch. This could be the turning point. That Furuno 585 is one sick as unit. Ive had the pleasure of using one offshore and it is a weapon. Very clear and easy to read, u can tell the difference between fish species if used properly. Did you get the 1kw transducer or 600w?

firstly Zod, you need to get rid of Fahrenheit, mph & Feet and use the good ol metric system. Those numbers you got on the screen are just sooo confusing. Anyway, the lines in the first 2 pics are definitely several good fish judging from the density and clearly defined lines and the separation of the lines. Your sounder will not tell you which direction the fish are swimming. It will only let you know what is beneath your transducer at a given point in time. The far right side of your screen shows what is under your boat now, and the screen will scroll the history of what was under your boat to the left. If you stay in the one spot or move very slowly, you may be able to see fish/object move up or down the water column but not in any other direction.

LOL u sellout ... Great video, with your luck on the kings lately, i think i might have to get myself a lucky shimano hat as well.

Whats with the Shimano hat dude? i thought you were are Daiwa all the way ... or did you finally come to yor senses and swap the saltigas for a stella

Hi Benzeenees, Nothing wrong with your sounder, I got the same HDS5, When you are drifting over reef in that depth in 19 deg water and you see those blue clouds 10m off the bottom, they are generally either: 1. Leatherjackets 2. Sweep 3. Slimies Drop down a paternoster rig with a size 2 long shank hook with a small bait and more than likely you will pull up one of the 3 mentioned above.

OMG you boys are insane!! That was an awesome video.