Port Stephens kingfish Thursday 28.2.2008

G’day lads

Darryl and I got away at 4:30AM and headed up the F3, launching at Halifax about 7:30, after breakfast en route. Some interesting trailer boats were there including ‘Strikezone’ and the Furuno-sponsored Haines. The plan was to get out wide and fish for striped marlin, with the reservations being that a) Col (djmac) couldn’t make it, so we were a bit short handed, and b) that a filthy southerly was due, around midday.

We scored some massive yakkas just south of the Tomaree LBG platform, and decided on some kingie fishing before heading out. Downrigging around the islands produced some nice kingies, both over and under legal:

Having run out of Mustad hoodlum hooks, I had switched to Owner circle hooks. Big mistake! We dropped some big strikes due to kings not hooking up properly on the circle. Back to a J hook, and the fish stayed pinned.

While downrigging, we heard over the VHF that the southerly had arrived on the Central Coast and was 90 minutes from Port. We decided to pass on the Car Park today.

A klick or two east birds were steadily building up so we decided to check it out. Four or five oil slicks appeared and the bird numbers grew to a thousand or more. It was obvious tuna or maybe marlin were hitting bait down deep, although nothing showed on the surface or on the sounder. Daz flicked a slice into the action on his ultralight rig and came up tight.

Half an hour later a *huge* striped tuna was circling the boat. I was ready with the gaff when PING, the exhausted fish slid away into the deep. Kind of a shame, it would have been great to weigh it. With the weather getting dirtier by the minute we headed over to Shark Island, for an SP session. Around noon we headed back in, logged off with VMR Port Stephens and WHAMMO, the southerly hit. The rain and wind were incredibly strong, it was impossible to retrieve the boat or even enter the marina passage. We heard VMR on the radio saying the wind was blowing 36 knots, but some gusts were far stronger than that. After things settled somewhat, we retrieved the boat and listened to a few war stories from trailerboat skippers who’d been out wide. One told me he couldn’t wait to ‘kiss the ground’! Really hoping everyone got back in safely, cheers, Andrew

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