**Sorry for being totally absent the last few months, I have
been having a great time here in Tasmania and unfortunately haven’t found time write
up reports...! I’ll kick off with one from this weekend, and hopefully get around
to writing up a few more over the coming weeks **
For the last few years, kingfish have been on my mind a lot.
They are one of the ocean’s great fighters, being renowned for their sheer strength
and ability to run into and snag the angler’s tackle on any structure they can
find. Since moving to the other side of the world back in July, the prospect of
catching one suddenly became a reality. Although the species is found over much
of Australia, they haven’t really made it over to Tasmania yet. It’s almost
exactly like the situation of seabass in Norway. The odd individual heads up from
warmer waters in summer months, but they are in such low densities they can’t
realistically be targeted.
I like a challenge when it comes to fishing, so catching a kingfish
whilst on my year abroad quickly became an obsession. On arrival I did some research,
and after talking to some local fishermen it became apparent it would not be
easy. As they are such a new arrival to the state’s fishing scene, there aren’t
yet any known hotspots, and their behaviour isn’t really understood. All I got
was that I might get lucky if I fished enough around structure and baitfish
from December-April. Once November came around I started fishing places I
thought a kingfish might be found but had no luck. I then visited New Zealand
(a real hotspot for Kingies) for 5 weeks, dedicating 5 days at the end of the
trip to fishing. Although I had some great fishing, none were caught.
I then spent the remainder of the summer holiday working and
travelling Tasmania. I travelled to many remote spots and fished with both lures
and live baits, and perhaps had one take from a kingy. Once semester started
again I realised that I was running out of chances and that I might not get one.
However, whilst revisiting a spot I hadn’t fished since
August I had a chat with a guy fishing a popper, who told me to go and have a
look in a bag he has behind a rock. Inside was a kingfish, not a monster like
the ones found in more tropical regions, but a good one for Tas, at around 7
lb. This gave me the boost in confidence I needed to continue the so far
fruitless search.
This past weekend I was invited out to fish for tuna with some
friends on the east coast of Tasmania, out of Eagle-hawk neck. The continental
shelf is very narrow off Tassie’s east coast, which means tuna fishing is fairly
accessible when the weather is good, as they come to feed at the shelf break on
baitfish attracted to the plankton rich waters found there.
We left Hobart at 3.20 am, with the plan being to get out on
the water as early as possible to make the most of the calm conditions forecast
for the early morning. After 11, it would get too windy and become dangerous,
especially in a small boat. We made it to the boat ramp at 5.30 and joined the
que of other boats waiting to launch. We were soon out on the water and heading
due east as the sun began to rise over the horizon.
Our journey out to the shelf break was great, although the Southern
Ocean swells made it quite a bumpy ride. We saw many dolphins, several
albatross species and lots of shearwaters, as well as an epic sunrise.
As we neared the edge of the continental shelf, about 25km offshore, we started to troll lures to try and locate some fish. If we were lucky enough to find lots of activity we could then try casting lures, but to begin with we wanted to cover some ground and find the fish first. Within no time at all 3 of the 4 rods were bent over and 3 small albacore tuna were boated. They were only about 5lb so we decided to continue following the edge of the shelf and hopefully find some better fish. My friend then boated a better fish, probably around 15lb. After the initial success we struggled to find the fish, after 30 minutes of waiting we landed a small striped tuna. This was then followed by a small southern bluefin tuna which we quickly released without a picture as the species is listed as critically endangered. The next action was in the form of a triple hook-up, we managed to simultaneously boat and release 3 bluefins. This was quite surprising as it is well known that albacore massively outnumber the bluefins off Tasmania’s east coast. Fairly soon after my reel was screaming, and I hooked and landed the best fish so far, another hard fighting bluefin.
After this fish we
struggled to find anything for about 20 minutes until we came across another
small school of albacore. By now it was around 9 am, and the wind was picking
up so made the decision to head back in but take a detour along the coast to a
sheltered cove to do some snorkelling and tuck in out of the wind.
After some snorkelling we headed back to the boat ramp,
hugging the coast. Although the wind had picked up, it was fortunately not as
bad as forecast. This meant that although the ride home was bumpy, I was still
able to clean and fillet a couple of the albacore we had caught and kept if we
went slowly. One of my friends then spotted some baitfish spraying out of the
water about 20m from the boat, so we stopped and had a few casts with spinning
rods. We didn’t see any dolphins, so assumed the fish were being chased by some
other pelagic fish. The guys were speculating marlin, as they had previously caught
one in the area. We didn’t have any hook-ups
on topwaters or metals skipped along the surface, but I managed a fish by dropping
a metal jig. I wound in a small ‘slimy mackerel’ very similar to the Atlantic
mackerel back in the UK. These were the fish that were being chased, and we
debated sending it down as a livebait, but we were drifting too fast for it to
be effective.
We carried on with lures but only ended up catching more mackerel,
so decided to make a move and troll a couple lures out the back whilst we
continued home. About a minute after I got back to filleting, my rod bent over
and line was being stripped at a ridiculous pace. After a good fight we
wondered what had taken my lure. Once we saw colour we realised this was no
tuna; the distinctive yellowtail and black line across the head could belong to
nothing other than a kingfish. When it saw the boat, it ran straight for the seabed
in true kingfish style, but fortunately I was able to control the fish and bring
it in. We were all ecstatic, as we all knew how lucky we were to run into one
of these beautiful, powerful fish.
We decided to make the most of the opportunity and try to
find some more, swapping the boat rods and multipliers for spinning rods rated
around 15-50g and 4000 size reels. We motored back to where I had the hook-up
and I cast out a 42g SG sandeel into the swell. I soon had another hook-up and
another epic fight followed. A friend of mine also hooked up on a metal skipped
along the surface. A double hook-up of kingfish in Tasmania! We couldn’t believe
it. Over the next hour we boated about 9 kingfish up to about 70cm, with 4 of
them falling to my SG sand eel. Unfortunately, the lure didn’t make it home as a
school of barracouta moved through, leaving me with only the jighead. I then switched
to a delalande swat shad, which caught me my biggest kingfish and an arrow
squid. I have no idea how the single hook managed to snag a tentacle! We lost
the school of kingies and headed back to the boat ramp feeling elated. Not only
had we had a great morning on the tuna, but we had also caught an incredible number
of the “Mythical Kingfish” every Tasmanian fisherman wants to catch. I don’t
think I have ever caught a fish that fights so well for their size. They also
never give up; on the gear we were using they were incredibly fun and
challenging to catch.
Although I have caught my kingy, I’ve still got a couple of
weeks to try and catch one from the shore too before they head off back to
warmer waters. I think it’s safe to say I have become somewhat obsessed with this
species and will be looking into catching some of the bigger ones found at more
northern latitudes!
Thanks for reading,
Stuart
No comments:
Post a Comment