FISHING ASSOCIATION
TUNA FISHING CHARTER Following a successful day out fishing for tuna with Southern Fishing Charters early last year, our Fishing Association decided to schedule another event for 2020 so the date was set for Saturday 22 February. With fine weather confirmed a few days prior, the plan was to head out to Sanders Bank. It’s a long trip out but it is a great fishing ground which I had not ventured to previously. Our group of ten CYCSA Fishing Association members met at the usual time, just before 6:00am, at Wirrina to board Fish Stalker. The trip down the coast from Wirrina was smooth and uneventful however when we came around the point at Cape Jervis we encountered a stiff 10-15 knot easterly breeze pushing up against the outgoing tide. Typical of that stretch of water! That slowed us down and we were in for a bumpy ride for the rest of our trip out to the targeted fishing grounds which we did in the company of another charter operator from the Cape. By the time we arrived at Sanders Bank after a three hour trip we had a few of our crew exhibiting various shades of grey and green, including yours truly. Fortunately, it did not take long for our skipper, Scott Weaver, to find fish and we started with a double hook up of tuna. Interestingly we didn’t sight many birds diving for bait fish this trip and we needed to use mid diving lures to get to the fish. Within an hour and a half everyone who was up to it had a go at reeling in a tuna. We had no difficulty getting our bag limit of six Blue Fin Tuna. As we cleaned up after the last of the tuna fishing Scotty motored us to a section of the bank that held bottom fish and set the anchor. Everyone was set up with bottom fishing lines and the action started quickly. Having said that, it was a challenge fishing in 40 metres of water where the slightest bit of slack line meant a missed ‘hook-up’ and a lengthy retrieval to rebait your hook! We managed to reel in a collection of nanagi, leather jacket, trevally, harlequin fish and snapper. Because we were fishing in Southern Zone waters we were able to take advantage of Scott’s ‘snapper tags’ and keep the four snapper we brought on board. This activity continued for a couple of hours or so until it was time to commence our trip back to Wirrina. By this time the breeze had dropped out significantly and with a following sea our trip back was much more pleasant than the trip out. It had certainly been a little more lumpy than I anticipated but still a good day by standards of fishing those particular grounds. With a good catch on ice there were smiles all round as we arrived back at the dock.
Peter Schembri Fishing Association Committee Member
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