Wednesday 28 May: a day at The Mountain

G’day lads

with sizeable yellowfin turning up in good numbers out wide, last weekend was a whirlwind of preparation. Down to Narrabeen Bait & Tackle for traces…. up to Windybanks for an esky full of pilchards…. checking drags and sharpening hooks all Sunday afternoon. SMS’s and e-mails were flying around, and soon we had a top crew of good keen blokes from Sydney Angler. James (Yabba), Peter (Scrat Rat) Darryl and myself rendezvoused at Roseville Ramp this morning and, after logging on with Coastal Patrol, set a course of 110 degrees for Browns Mountain.

As usual we stopped over at the Twelve Mile, for a jigging session. No obvious kingie schools on the screen, but a show of some kind of fish 220 feet down? A few minutes later we were down three jigs and had confirmed – in an expensive way- that the school was composed of ravenous leatherjackets. Payback was achieved when Pete jigged one right through the belly:

Back on the plane and forty minutes later we arrived at The Mountain. As usual there was nothing showing excepting an albatross and a petrel or two but the water looked great and the six or seven boats scattered about – most unusual for midweek- confirmed the word had got out, in a big way. Keeping well clear of the other boats we ran two miles south and just inside of the peak, and got the cube trail started.

Ten minutes later the first pilchard with a hook went over. And two minutes after that we had a double hook up on yellowfin! Is there anything better than the howl of a Tiagra drag in full cry? Well maybe a Beastmaster 50/80, but let’s not get picky. James and Darryl played their fish calmly and well and after 25 minutes or so, both were boated:

While all this was happening Pete kept the cubes going, and there were some massive boils just behind the boat as tuna took berley pieces off the surface. Kind of like a brown trout taking a mayfly off the surface- if brown trout grew to thirty kilos. Once the boat was squared away it was Pete’s turn. A big yellowfin slammed his pilchard and gave him a solid work out:

Once boatside Pete elected to tag and release the fish rather than kill it. Good call Peter! I was next on strike but as the crew knows I’m a bit of a shark nut, and elected to put out a big mako bait under a balloon ‘for a bit of variety.’ With things going quiet after the turn of the tide we elected to run for home. The seas had settled and we were back at the Heads in 70 minutes. A great day, a great crew and how lucky are we here in Sydney, to have such fantastic fishing right on our doorstep? Looking forward to many more tuna sessions this winter, Andrew

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