Boban

Not funny Grant...........

Given what is happening at the moment, I thought I would post this table to help everyone estimated the weight of their fish. Source :http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/PFRP/biology/itano/itano_yft.pdf

We noticed that Talk about blood, it was like a slaughterhouse in the cockpit. Here's Pete doing his best with the deckwash. It was like the pump was going non stop for the day.

Good ratios is an understatement mate. Top stuff. Cheers Mitch

Well it looks like someone had a good day even amongst the fleet of boats. Is that Shannon Noll in the first photo? He's a dead ringer. Well done fellas. Cheers Mitch

I know the rod is only rated to 24kg line, so that would be 8kg of drag it should handle in theory. I would have hoped it could handle 12kg at least, but I wouldn't like to be holding on to 12kg for an extended period of time even with a harness. I'll store that one in the memory for future reference.

I'm alright now, but I went to an engagement last night and I could barely keep my eyes open. I haven't been that tired in a long time. It's funny though, we got some good sized fin, but that first one was massive. Its the thought of that fish that will get me out again and again. When you coming down Grant?

Nice work Ray. I know the area fairly well, but haven't tried soft plastics there. Have you tried Mungo just north of Broughton. We even got Pearl Perch there and I reckon it could be the go with soft plastics. That and the Sisters early in the morning will be my next target I think. I know what you mean about cleaning the boat. Or not having to at least. The YFT sure do make a mess of the boat as does the burley. Nothing like a quick hose down at the end of the day as opposed to some scrubbing where you missed while out there. You seem to fish there often. Where do you launch from. I go out from Hawks Nest which is a bugger when the short cut at Corrie Island fills up with sand. Just a few questions for you: What size gear and leader were you using? What plastics are most successful for you? What size jigheads are you using?

Top work on the fin. It was a good day on Friday. That has me worried. I've got the same rod. Three of them actually. I heard in the first video saying that you had 10kg of drag on the Stella. Is that right? That's a crap feeling when something goes wrong with your gear.

Nice fin Anthony and a good report. What's happened to the Big Banana? You still have her don't you?

I pretty sure more than enough do .....

That's alright. 19 fin. We didn't see too many fin but they were all big. That would have been awesome sitting out there in the middle of a feeding frenzy. You can't help yourself with the prawns can you. From the subtitle, I thought to myself, your joking he's caught 19 fin on prawns. Well done mate. Cheers Mitch

Great report and well done on the fin. Im not so sure I'd agree with you about the 60kg model but then again with time anything is possible. Bloody hard and long work though. It's good seeing the fish in the water aye? I get all excited just thinking about it.

We were wide of Browns but we followed Glenn out so Im not exactly sure how far past Browns we were. It was a bit like that. How did you go?

To say we had a perfect day is certainly an understatement. Go Fish Pete, Stewy and myself have a great day on the fin that we will savour for a long time to come. Perfect conditions, great company and a day when almost everything went right. Almost everything. We started out following Billfisher to the spot before trolling for a some time before arriving at the final spot. We were about a kilometre from Billfisher and started cubing at about 12.30. The first run was on the live yakka which was the only one we scored through what appeared to be a mountain of sweep. There run was shortlived with no hookup but it was a good sign anyway. I was tired having only had a few hours of sleep when my rod went off in a big way. Straight away you could feel the weight of this fish. It was big. When we finally got some colour, we could see for ourselves that this was a big fish. After a long time about with about 10 metres between us and the fish we finally got a chance at a gaff shot. Stewy was concerned that the gaff was a little light on for this fish and I now wished that I got the flying gaff from Pete the day before. Well what do you reckon happened next? Stewy takes his "pussy pills" then goes and lands a direct hit on the fishes head. It goes ballistic and heads straight under the boat pinning Stewy's arm against the hull before he is forced to let go. The 60Lb leader popped and we were all gutted. Stewy had some pain to go with it. This was easily my best tuna and I thought ..... well better I keep that to myself. Truth be told we were better off waiting another 10 mins until he was floating on the surface and completely stuffed before we gaffed it. We rigged up a makeshift tethered gaff and thats exactly what we did from there on. Then within about 10 minutes of that disappointment, Stewy's rod went off and he was gaining line pretty quickly on his fish, before the fish realised what the hell was going on. No, no, no (any winehouse style) it went and the pussy pills were wearing off as Stewy was going in for the long haul. Memories of why he likes bream fishing started to flood back as Stewy and the tuna started to put the hurt on each other. When this thing came up I said to Stewy that there was no way I was gaffing this mother until it was well and truly stuffed. This time we were a little more patient and timed the gaff shot perfectly before reefing this thing over the gunwales. At about a metre and half this way one big fish. Pete's outfit went off soon after and in what appeared to be a short time he had a 45Kg model come up completely stuffed. We thought that he must have been gut hooked but when I checked for the hook, that wasn't the case at all. A perfect corner of mouth hookup. At that size Pete was happy. So happy in fact that he held the fish for about 10 minutes before we put it under the floor and on ice. He was like a schoolboy with his first love. The boys were adamant that I was not going to go home without a fish and that's exactly as it panned out. For the next hour and a bit, I was onto one stubborn fish which I initially called for a 20kg model. It was all too easy at the start, way too easy. During this time Billfisher came over to us and set their lines. There were some massive fish swimming in our berley trails while I was fighting this fish. Pretty soon the boys on Billfisher had a double hookup of which they ended up with one. But I still hadn't landed my fish. We had a few hairy moments but eventually it was boated by the boys with the fish well and truly worn out. So was I. We left the boys on Billfisher with the fish still on the bite. The conditions only got better as the day was coming to a close and we got to speed back at 30 knots. Im tired as I type this but I would do it all again in a heartbeat. A big thank you to Glenn Hunter, you are a champion mate, which is not at all surprising given your genes. As to the other two, lets do it all again..... AND GUESS WHAT.....TUNA EAT SWEEP.

What a great day you guys had. Pity the poor bugger spewing up while the fish were on. You want to catch fish but you are dying to get back....Not nice. Well done.

That did look like a great trip with some top fish thrown into the mix. Just one thing, don't you reckon you could do with a longer gaff Wish I was there.

Well done mate. This is the sort of stuff that gets the blood pumping. I can't wait now.

Ummmm shouldn't you be digging holes and filling them up with water? Now I will refrain from swearing and say "noice, very noice mate"

Great report Anthony. Excellent fish too. You are doing well lately mate. Next week again? Cheers Mitch

Hey I've seen those two characters before. Nice fish boys. They are getting bigger all the time Mike.

You couldn't pay for an experience like that Mike. So ask yourself, was it worth it? An amazing story that you get to tell for the rest of your life.

That's all you want. Good one Roscoe.

I must admit that I love catching tailor especially on light gear. On poppers, they can be truly awesome when they are in a feeding frenzy. Off Tomaree about this time of the year, they can be very thick and voracious. So much so that you can get more than one on the same lure. I love it, but its not that frequent. Sounds like you had a good short session. I always say that fishing is a thinking man's sport. Top stuff.

I think it's an excellent suggestion Warnie. We've seen a few examples of the sounder readings and I am always interested in others readings. I recently spent the day looking at the readout on my Furuno 585 while downrigging and it felt like I had eyes underwater to some degree. It's pretty easy with kingies but a lot of times you really need some confidence in your sounder especially on unfamiliar ground. How many times have you had what appears to be millions of fish under your boat with no takers? Yep, bring it on.