I got an invite from a mate last week to go out wide fishing because the weather was looking mint. Seabreeze predicted <10 knots for the whole day so the plan was to explore some ground 30-50km offshore not usually possible with summer WA weather. The first stop was to collect some bait for the bottom bashers. Since I only packed jigs between 90 -230g for offshore use, I wasn’t prepare for the 6m bait collection spot. Then the Williamson Gyro jig in my tackle box caught my eye. I had previously bought this jig from Compleat Angler Boxhill when they were on special @$3. As cheap as it sounds, this is actually an excellent flutter jig, courtesy of the asymmetrical sides. I had rigged this 30g jig with a single hook for casting at surface bust up. This lure swims well on fast retrieve and flutters down on the pause, mimicking an injured dying baitfish falling out of the school. As that was my only option, I cast it out and jigged it back. On my second retrieve, I had a hook-up! The fish didn’t managed to peel any line from the reel but the rod was folding over and pulsating from the tail beat as the fish tried to win its freedom. After a short tussle, a nice fat black arse breached the surface, mouth agape with the J-hook lodged in the lower jaw from the outside. I was stoked. It looked bigger and fatter than my previous PB jigged up from Whitey’s charter in Jurien Bay. The fish looked rather squarish than cod shape but who cares? – it tasted great on the table. ☺ With only a few wrasses on the deck, we decided to move on to the deeper ground. Half way out we came across many birds working the surface. I wanted to cast but skipper decided to troll around the birds to see what’s lurking underneath the surface. Haine’s rod was the first to take off, the lure that did the damage was Halco Laser Pro 140 red head. A fat yellowfin tuna of 8kg hit the deck. We continued to troll and next was double hook-up. However, the skipper dropped his fish because he was using 6kg line to gain points for his comp. Marco’s fish stayed on the hook and soon he brought in a yellowfin of similar size to the first. I am more of a casting freak than a trolling person but since the bite was red hot, I decided to pull out my Rapala CD Magnum purchased last Xmas. In an era where X-Raps took most of the lime light, I decided to go old-school and tied on this timber lure, retrofitted with Owner S-125 singles. As I didn’t have any trolling outfit, the Rapala CD Magnum was sent out in my Saltiga Hiramasa spinning outfit, rigged with 65lb braid & 50lb FC. As the boat passed another flock of seabirds, my reel went off! It was hard pumping in the fish when it swam towards the surface in the opposite direction but once it dived deep, the parabolic action of the rod exerted enough hurt to tire the fish out quickly. With a few strokes, the fish was brought to the surface- another finz of smaller proportion. Nevertheless, I was stoke. Not because I caught the fish but because my decision to go old school and Owner singles proved to be correct! I did try Decoy Jigging Singles before but missed many strikes at the Abrolhos, both casting and trolling. Not that they are no good but I reckon they are not suited for fast moving lures. The tuna was pinned on the upper jaw on the belly hook – very clean hook-up. The lures went sent out again to troll but you guessed it, triple hook-up again within minutes! This time round my trolling lure wasn’t in the water, but I was rigged up and ready to cast when the rest were reeling in the fish. I jumped on the front deck but the birds had already gone. The lure of choice was a sinking stickbait of 80mm that claimed many tunas before. My first cast out saw a dark shadow tailing the sinking stickbait but not striking. When I swapped to a Lucky Craft stickbait of similar size, the same thing happened again. I gathered the fish were in the mood to chase fast moving prey so I put on my heavy sinking minnow and whipped out a long cast. Weighing merely 24g, Tackle House Flitz cast like a dream and could be cranked back at high speed, courtesy of the dorsal fin which acted like a keel, ensuring the lure tracked straight even at high speed. I counted to 10 to let the lure sank deeper before burning back at full speed. At this stage the birds were no longer in sight and I was merely blind casting. On my 3rd crank I felt a solid thud following by the screeching sound of my Twinpower 4000XG as the fish peeled the 20lb braided line out at the rate of knots. The tuna gave my Bayside Shooter 10-25lb a good work out as you can see from the photos. The first run was powerful, tearing a fair bit of line from the spool. Second run was strong but lacked the stamina of the 1st. By the 3rd run, line barely came out of the spool and the tuna was merely doing circles. Since we already had 4 tunas in the esky, I made the call to rel œease the tuna at boatside. Trashing tuna with a set dangling trebles in a boat with 4 person wasn’t a good idea after all. As such, there was no photo taken- my apologies! I was ecstatic to deflower a lure which had been sitting in the stash for 4 years! In the next half an hour or so, more tunas were landed. We landed 8 tunas altogether but only kept 4. The boys also picked up baldies and a few legal dhueys in 60-70m spots. However, I didn’t even manage to get a sniff on my heavier jigs! This had to be one of the best metro fishing trip for me ever. I am pretty sure the casting results would have been just as good had the skipper decided to cast rather than troll for the fish. But I couldn’t ask for more, beautiful weather, red hot trolling action and the opportunity to deflower new lures! This is a new lure, used for the first time and had caught 1 fish. But there are multiple teeth marks all over the lures. Check these out! My guess is either the fish made multiple attempts to nail the lure before getting hooked or there were more than 1 fish going at this lure. NO...they aren't hook rash. I try rotating the hooks but there are some angles where the hook points can't reach. The lure that accounted for the Black-Arse. Whilst I was rinsing and de-salting the lures, I noticed that the split ring on the rear hook had been deformed! The tuna was hooked on the upper jaw on the tail treble. Looks like the treble stood the test but the split ring gave way instead. Mine you, they were the stocked standard Japanese HD split ring and Owner Trebles.

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