It was with much interest that we went out last Saturday. After the bad weather would the fish still be there? The weather report was promising except for a bit of a blow in the afternoon, so off we went.

Apart from the cold, the sea was kind as I ran out to the shelf where we put the gear in and started trolling. The ocean looked dead, no birds no bait not even any whales to distract us. However, in all fairness that’s how it had been the last couple of times out, just blind strikes out of the blue.

We travelled out past Browns heading out to the hot current beyond Heatons. In six hundred fathoms we started to see whales, surprisingly both Humpback and Sperms the latter of which in the past I’d associated with Bluefin, but none today.

Action

Then while I was watching the skirts I saw something I hadn’t seen before off Sydney. A Thresher shark was using its tail to hit the Lumo. It had a couple of shots before it actually hooked up. It then took off at a rate of knots nearly spooling us. The next hour was taken up with Rob and his brother-in-law, Christian, trying to get this thing up. Finally, and they were both exhausted, we gave in, locked up the reel and hoped – the Thresher won this one.

We set off again and was rewarded with a Marlin strike, it ran off some line and dropped the lure, but for some odd reason it kept on greyhounding for another few minutes I guess we must have hit a nerve or something.

So, with a mixture of adrenalin and frustration on deck we set off again. Because of the time spent on the Thresher, going wide was out of the question so I headed back in towards the shelf. It wasn’t long before we had a double on Yellowfin. One of which took off a couple of hundred metres and just dropped the lure. The other rod was taken by young Leon who did a great job and had the fish in sight when it just opened its mouth and out came the lure, frustration all round.

Again, we headed off and with the wind coming away it was homeward bound. We hadn’t gone far when something hit the Pakula Witchdoctor and ripped it off, literally. Whatever it was must have hit the stripteasers and cut the chord in the process, more frustration.  We headed off yet again.

In about three hundred fathoms we had another hit and the fish took off, obviously a good one. After a tough fight Robert brought the Yellowfin to the boat.

A great end to a frustrating yet still enjoyable day.

Tight lines,
Ivan

• All lure used unless otherwise specified are Pakula Lures .

Links..