queensland I've got the blues..... northern bay report

[madmullet]

the weekend brought 15-20knts s/se winds, but that didnt stop us from heading over to

moreton and looking for tuna. our adventure started when we arrived to the sand. we floated

around for approx 1 hour only seeing birds searching over the open blue paddock in search

of their pray. just to the north we notice a floating object, so we motored over to the object

to find it was a dolphin floating belly up. i all of a suddenly got excited due to the chance

of a good size shark feeding on the carcas, but to my disappointment, their was no sharks to

be seen, let alone even a mark/bite on the dolphin.

we pushed on slowly north reaching the tangalooma area when i spotted a couple of small floats

disappearing. we moved over to the area to see a large green turtle with approx 2m of rope and 3

small floats trailing from the neck. i asked dave to move closer to the turtle to get a better

look and devise a plan of attack to save the turtle. as we approached it took a slow dive down

to the depths said to dave get me as close to the turtle as possible so i can dive on top of it,

grab either side of the shell, angle it back and let the turtle swim me to the surface where we

would try and attempted to untangle the turtle. unfortunately we didnt see the turtle re-surface

for the next 10 mins so we pressed on north looking for the tuna.

finally just north of curtin, we witnessed birds bombarding the water. we moved in ever so slowly ready

to fire the first cast into the school of tuna. i was armed with my 3000 freams kix, spooled with

10lb td sensor and a 2-5kg rod and a 3gr twisty.i fired the slug across the outside of the school

and wound it back in, in anticipation of a hit.this happened for the next 2 hrs, so i put down my

rod and studied how the fish were feeding. they were rising to the bait fish like a trout rises to

a mayfly.i scrambled under the cabin of the mighty 6.5m cruise craft to find my plastics. flicking through

the plastic I came across a 3" smelt gulp. i trimmed it down to approx 2.5" and put a 1/8 sz 1 nitro

jighead in the plastic, tied it onto my 20lb ready and fired it into the school.twitch twitch bang,

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,of the reel screamed, dave

put the 350 chev into gear and started following the fish. on and on the battle went, the fish would

dive deep, so we would drive the boat forward in the attempted to raise it. finally after a hour

long battle the fish finally broke the surface and a few pumps of the rod, and a well placed gaff, the tuna

was finally in the boat.

the change of technique worked, so i rigged up dave and his son the same and went on the search for

the tuna again. we searched and waited another 10-15 mins when the poped up again. we motored over to

them once again and i said i will watch and manuever the boat while you guys chased the tuna. they fired

a few casts each towards the school, bud were landing 10-15ft short of the school. i picked up my rod

and fired a cast which landed directly into the middle of the school, boom, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, i was on again, i said to daves son,hear mate take this, its all yours

mate, he argued a little before giving in. this fish did not let us down either, putting on some long

runs and some deep dives into this battle. the tuna did a few rounds of the boat before dave once again

sunk the gaff into this nice fish.

the decision was made to call it quites and head back to the ramp. 2 great tuna landed on 10lb gear, blake

with a solid 27.5lb longtail and myself with a 28.6lblongtail.

cheers for reading

[rayke1938]

Welcome back Kurt and thanks for great read.

Cheers

Ray

[Doobsy]

Very nicely composed report. Cheers.

[samsteele115]

Great report, thanks. Shame about the dolphin and turtle

[sicott]

That's fantastic! I was at curtin today and we spotted a long tail jump fully out of the water at the Northern boundary. We threw slugs and trolled for an hour over the reef but never saw them again. Thanks for sharing the technique, might try next time.

Cheers.

[kmcrosby78]

A couple of great longies there Kurt, well done. I didn't even realise metal slugs went below 3 grams - what hooks do you have in them at that size? Nice work on the plastics change, certainly worked for you!!

[madmullet]

A couple of great longies there Kurt, well done. I didn't even realise metal slugs went below 3 grams - what hooks do you have in them at that size? Nice work on the plastics change, certainly worked for you!!

I run singles . They actually come in a 1.5 as well

[jnewy]

nice post mate glade to see you are back

[rosstralia46]

Good to see you haven't lost your writing mojo haha

[fifis101]

Nice work mate. What a couple of cracker fish on the light gear.

Your experience just shows that matching the hatch is super important.

[morty85]

Cracking brace ther! Real shame about the turtle, great kudos in trying to get in and give it hand!

[fishingnut]

Welcome back kurt ! is that your new boat ? Looking forward to more reports keep it up

[demarc]

Awesome score Kurt! I'm yet to get a long tail.

Let's hope they play ball on Sunday mate! Looking forward to fishing with you, haven't had the pleasure yet...

[EZY]

good to see ya mate. nice report and even nicer sashimi good one guy's.

[rathabfishin2]

Good to see you back Kurt! Great report, great fish and good on you for handing over the reins to your mate. It's a shame about the turtle but good on you for trying. When I used to work with the EPA taking samples in the bay and around Qld dead turtles were not that uncommon and we would have to collect them for autopsy.