Saturday’s BOM weather report was nothing to get excited about especially for going game fishing out wide. On checking the SST’s before the week-end it looked as though there were two likely areas where the Yellowfin might turn up. One was an area wide and South of Browns and the other North-East of the bait station. Via the grapevine I’d heard that a few ‘fin were wide of Broken Bay and off the Southern canyons. So it was with great expectations that we went out game fishing on the hunt for the elusive Yellowfin.

On the way out I decided to check  for Kings which  were on the bite on the inshore reefs. I didn’t bother taking live bait relying on the jigs to do the job. We did manage a couple of Kings as well as lots of Jackets. However it quickly became apparent that live bait was the go. The two other boats out there were doing a lot better than us.

I trolled out to the thousand fathom line but the water stayed green. Continuing South down the line there was no change in the water colour. So, after several hours trolling I discussed the situation with Chen and her friends and we decided to go back to the reef . It is ironic that though the radio is a frustration with its idiots on demand it is also a great source of information. Unfortunately, since I was the only boat out wide, due to the weather report, I could only judge the conditions from what I was seeing.

By the time we’d reached the reef the other boats had gone. We had the place to ourselves and the Kings were biting. I don’t know what changed but the jigs worked and saved the day.

Sunday was a perfect game fishing day. This time I went looking for bait but Murphy had stepped in and they just weren’t biting. I didn’t want to spend too much time chasing the bait as I was sure the ‘fin were out there somewhere. So again we hit the reefs with only jigs and again bait was the way to go. Remi and his mates however were keen to catch tuna.

Trolling out near and just over the shelf the bait was really building up. At times it was almost up to the

surface where the gannets were dive bombing the schools – it was looking really fishy.

 

There were a lot of boats out on Sunday and the chatter wasn’t too bad, with only a couple of nuisances voicing there opinions. For the most part the chatter was informative. Interestingly Marlin were being reported regularly around the bait and at least one at Browns. With that in mind we spent a good deal of time working around the bait schools before heading wider. Again after spending several hour trolling for nothing and not hearing about any Yellowfin we decided  to go back to the reef. This time though we spent some time jigging up mackerel out of the schools on the shelf. After we’d caught about twenty very large slimies we headed back to the reef.

Murphy stepped in again though. We had just dropped our first live bait down when reports of Yellowfin started to come in. Worse,  they were only a few miles from where I was heading. Whoever said fishing wasn’t frustrating has never been fishing.

Summing it up there were several Yellowfin taken. ‘Murryifin’ and ‘Phat Cat’ amongst those who found them and Ed from his boat ‘Hold Up’ tagged a Striped Marlin.

So with the hope of a good run of Yellowfin and an early start to the Marlin season.

Tight lines,
Ivan