B-MACK
26-04-2011, 08:48 PM
A school of marauding long tail tuna are smashing Australian anchovies against the surface of the water. You are in a small aluminium boat creeping, your rod and reel locked and loaded with a 40g Raider terminally. You get 30 metres away and the tuna are still feeding ferociously. You put the outboard into neutral, unfasten the hook from the bottom runner on the rod, clip the bail arm back as you lift your rod over your head and unload.Your cast lands ten metres past, and in front of the feeding fish. You wind like hell, a fish starts to follow, its gaining on the lure, your heart is in your mouth. Your lure gets back to only ten metres from the boat and a small submarine at top speed does a u-turn on top of it spraying water all the way to the boat.Fish on!!!
Took my 3.9m tinnie, my missus and my son up Teewah beach on Friday. Launched from a gutter on the Rainbow Beach side of the headland at around 8am. It was the first trip offshore for my one year old son, Fin.
We trolled hardbodies up the coffee rock for about 20 mins until we saw a serious school of big tuna feeding on the surface. Got to the school just as Fin had fallen asleep in Gemma’s arms. Oh well I had better get stuck into one. The above mentioned scene unfolded and after a 5-10 minute battle I had a nice little long tail in the boat.
I had another couple of casts without having to motor, I lost a lure, and caught a mac tuna.Gemma had never caught a long tail so I held Fin and motored slowly back to where the longies were. Gemma got a nice cast straight over the frenzied school. A coupleof winds and she was on big time. I will never forget watching her and the line peeling off the spool, while the rod tip bucked and the drag screemed! Gemma asked “what do I do now” to which I replied “your running 15lb braid so probably not much for a while yet”. After about ten minutes a nice longtail was boat side and I had to put Fin on the deck as I gaffed the fish. Fin was now awake and Gemma was exhausted so we headed back to the beach leaving the big school of fish still frothing about.
A great way to spend a Good Friday with the family!!
Took my 3.9m tinnie, my missus and my son up Teewah beach on Friday. Launched from a gutter on the Rainbow Beach side of the headland at around 8am. It was the first trip offshore for my one year old son, Fin.
We trolled hardbodies up the coffee rock for about 20 mins until we saw a serious school of big tuna feeding on the surface. Got to the school just as Fin had fallen asleep in Gemma’s arms. Oh well I had better get stuck into one. The above mentioned scene unfolded and after a 5-10 minute battle I had a nice little long tail in the boat.
I had another couple of casts without having to motor, I lost a lure, and caught a mac tuna.Gemma had never caught a long tail so I held Fin and motored slowly back to where the longies were. Gemma got a nice cast straight over the frenzied school. A coupleof winds and she was on big time. I will never forget watching her and the line peeling off the spool, while the rod tip bucked and the drag screemed! Gemma asked “what do I do now” to which I replied “your running 15lb braid so probably not much for a while yet”. After about ten minutes a nice longtail was boat side and I had to put Fin on the deck as I gaffed the fish. Fin was now awake and Gemma was exhausted so we headed back to the beach leaving the big school of fish still frothing about.
A great way to spend a Good Friday with the family!!