Solid fish being double poled.

Yep, agree with you quadfiher no political correctness on that boat .

 Yeow, my back hurts.

That was wild. I bet there were some gnarly injuries in those hectic periods. Hooks flying everywhere.

I haven't seen the mechanical poles before, they were interesting!

 Headbangin' stuff!

Just watched this and realised two of my old mates are fishing in the video, Neil Saben and Simon Blomfeild, old surf buddies! they went away to fish with D Lukin skinny surf rats and came home with guns and grins larger than the girth of those tuna! Blowen away!!!

 Tuna fishers are a rare breed. An poling was a brutal way to Mae a living. I tried it for a few days up the gulf an quit, going back to long lining an ab boats where you didn't break your back.

Love it!

 I was living in Port Lincoln 75-76, did various types of fishing, but couldn't get a start on a pole boat, just didn't look  strong enough. Big Slav blokes and nuggety italians ruled the roost. Remember Dean Lukin, our Olympic Weightlifting champion? That was his background, Lukins were a tuna fishing family out of Lincoln. The big purse seiners were just starting to really make themselves felt at that time, but poling was still the mainstay. Used to triple pole when the fish were REALLY big. Love how the hydraulic poles needed a bit of help on the big fish. They were all for canning, those days, you couldn't treat fish like that for the Jap market---how things have changed. I can almost smell the Safcol cannery, still. I remember seeing huge YTK's coming in as well, mixed with the tuna,,I think they went for personal consumption.

I ended up being an ab diver instead, but that's a whole other story.

Great story,  I have always been a bit misty eyed about the early days of com fishing in Australia,  would make a great doco

/feature film about what they did and how they did it.

Another great story is all about the early days of the salmon pros on the WA coast , the way they though things out , there hardships, and how they forged a industry

out of nothing, when the south coast was a wild and remote place.

No I have never been a fishing pro , and sometimes are at odds with the industry , esp as a rec fisher , but doesnt mean i cant admire them.

on the East Coast, before they shut it down. Was awesome and would do it again in a heart beat. Best time of my fishing life by far.

was a little before my time but I know a fair few guys who were in the poling side of it-not one has a good back.

A mate in Albany has many photos of his early days poling but I dont have access to those.

The big advantage with poling over longlining-you can pick your weather, if the longline is in the water you have to pull it.
Doesnt take anything away from the physical part of poling though, and that is a great video.

Should maybe chuck up my longlining pictures again

Deadliest Catch eat your heart out.

Would love to throw a light rig overboard and have a battle with some off those beauties.

l(quote)ol so true man. We used to sell to Safcol back in days of long lining an crays. god that place stank more n we did after 7 weeks at sea :p.

Ab diver? nice I worked pickup in dingy for 2 divers for about 8-9 months in total... think I had beter part of deal lol (unquote) 

You could pick the girls down at the pub who worked at Safcol--that smell was always there  I ended up as a "relief diver"--they were allowing the shellers to dive as a way to build up experience, they said, for when the current crop of divers retired, as the licencing system didn't allow for sale or transfer--this was pre-quota. We were supposed to be limited to an hour a day in the water--often didn't work that way. We got to keep 40% or something like that of what we actually caught--just the usual percentage when we were shelling and following. Which meant that if you came up with a full bag real quick, you were out of the water and the diver was into it Got bent twice, spent a few nights on oxygen,, they reckoned I wasn't sick enough the be flown to Adelaide to the decomp chamber. F*in awful feeling. And bloody hard work, cold water, no shark cages then, all swimming. Donny Morrison had just got a $10,000 grant from the state government to develop the first one. Before long they had the cages to drag them around, and hot water pumped down to warm the suits--all they needed was to be able to have a smoke and they were made.

 I actually never saw a shark the whole time i was on the water, would you believe--of course, they were being hunted then, less around than now. Endangered my arse.The bloke I did most of my work for had a girlfriend--she was the widow of a diver who got bitten clean in half at Streaky Bay about five years before. We were working a single boat operaton, 15ft open fibreglass you could beach launch. had to have your wits about you, shelling and following at the same time. Rounding up on the hose the wrong way would see the diver dragged off the bottom and away from his bag. We were bulletproof--had a compressor stop on me in near 80ft of water, as deep as we wpuld dive. No inbuilt reserve either, went from full air to a vacuum in three breaths. Came through the surface like a polaris missile, exhaling all the way. Or getting a lungfull of petrol fumes under pressure--the resulting ascent at the end of a long dive was what got me bent the first time.

Anyway, tuna fishing. Now they run a purse seine around them and tow the lot back to the Boston Pay pens, transfer and fatten. Doesn't seem like so much fun, somehow.

 Seining is bad, I hate it. Mostly because of the damage it does. Japanese in southern ocean are notorious for tat. They take tuna dolphin u name it....tuna fishers in azalea are a little strange, a few use lines, others use rods...there's all sorts.

Did 2 trips on Velebit out of Port Lincoln poling fish that were averaging 15kg and that was hard work let alone the much bigger versions shown single and double poled!

Velabit was featured in the movie "Blue Fin" and Nedo got a new wheel house out of it after it was "wrecked" in the fllm.

The real cream was obviously being first on a school, part of the reason Dean Lukin had "Super Dog" the fasted boat in the fleet, once you fill up you also get a big % of whichever purse seiner shot in the school after you were finished with it.

Brief memories and an awesome area especially North Neptunes and Kangaroo Island overnighing. SA is an special place!

 I remember blue fin. I was young then an still a greenhorn so to speak. But I wanted to go poling for ages.

Dean lurking didn't impress me much as he was a steroid head...self admitted....but as a tuna an he seemed to be good.

Thanks for posting this up - history in the making and yes we have gone soft - soft in the head

oh god...slipped discs and hernias left right and center there. haha. that would be an awesome one off event for a bucks party or something like that. no way in hell would anyone be able to keep up like that in this day and age. awesome post and some good history there

lol depending on how much beer id had...i recon i might get 1 or 2 then fall flat on my ass

 Heh you may well do fine, but it puts a real hurt on your body.

Case in point

 I have arthritis in neck an

bone spurs in my c1 an c2.

I have high blood pressure.

A chronic back issue where I can't use a broom for more an 5 mins.

Migraines.

Hearing issues with high pitch sounds (having diesels running 24/7).

Arthritus in both hands...Psi you see that was from about 23-25 years at sea :)