I went out again Sunday week ago hoping to succeed where we had missed out on that good ‘fin the previous time with the same crew who were ready and raring to go.

Started out with a jig at 12 Mile with limited success but managing one nice King of a metre before the jackets moved in. The sea was up a bit despite weather reports to the contrary. However we ventured out to the spot and started cubing. All was quiet except for the occasional upchuck but then as the sun was setting one of the rods went off, it wasn’t a ‘fin but it had us guessing –  a Stripy, a shark or maybe even an Albacore – well after a short but solid fight Marty landed a Striped tuna of 8kgs. , thank God they don’t grow to the size of their bigger cousins.

The boys were getting tired and not feeling any better so were considering returning but I said give it another ten minutes. I hadn’t even finished speaking when first one rod then the other took off and the organised panic set in. Both fish were obviously Yellowfin and giving the anglers hell.

Well I hate reporting failure but we lost the first one when the line broke after the fish crossed lines. The other continued for another half hour when we had it circling just under the boat. I managed to take the leader – a good fish at least 45kgs. but it was still too strong and I didn’t want to take any risks. Ten minutes later the line broke and on inspection the leader had worn through just above the knot – so close, so bloody close.

I took the same group out again on Friday but to cut a long story short we didn’t even see a fish. The sea was perfect, dead calm all day some would say too calm and over 23 degrees, maybe too perfect. I heard of two Marlin taken around the shelf with one of the boats, ‘Tintola’ owned by Rick Camilleri , also taking a Wahoo – Wahoo in June who would believe it. The only good thing about the day was that we made it in before the weather went sour but even then we came back through a very intense but short lived thunder storm.

Hopefully this week’s intense weather will make a change, you’ve got to be optimistic.

Until next time…

Tight lines,
Ivan