It’s safe to say the barrel bluefin bite off the coast of southwest Victoria has been getting a fair bit of attention around the country and living a few hours drive away it was only going to be a matter of when and not if I would get down there.

As always (and I consider myself lucky to be able to do this) it was a last minute phone call from a good friend in Aaron Habgood from Saltguide/Reel Adventures on a Monday night that resulted in packing his 6m Northbank the next day and getting in the car that afternoon to make our way down ringing ahead from the passenger seat to try and find some accommodation for a 2 night stay.

Its safe to say what ensued the next day didn’t disappoint and will be one of those days I will look to live again…

Although the morning started out slow (if you consider hooking a barrel on the trawl before 8am unfortunately clean snapping our 24kg mainline after a minute presumably hitting something else in the water column slow) things really started to fire on the tide change around lunch. Spotting some birds from a distance we shot over a ball of red bait being punished from every angle. Sitting slightly to deep to net we opted for a dead yakka thrown in the middle to sink down and it wasn’t long before line started peeling off and the bail arm flicked over to feel the immediate weight of a good fish. 

Throughout the following 3 hour fight and a few phone calls to friends, I can confidently say at least another 10 fish were hooked up or shot off that same bait ball while we watched on with one eye from a distance. Multiple 100kg fish could be seen breaking the surface at any given time which we captured some amazing footage captured of. Unfortunately for us, Our fish won its freedom pulling the hooks no more than 10m from the boat but It did give us a good look at it some 1.5 hours earlier and as often is the case, it was the biggest one we saw for the trip estimating it 140kg plus which isn’t uncommon compared to some of the other fish being caught. Not to be defeated, we went again this time managing to get a good net full of the red bait to throw back down live.

It was only 5 minutes into the next fish which happened to be my turn on the rod that something didn’t feel right. A question followed to the guys on the boat if anyone had touched the drag (all of our reels had been pre-set by Aaron and myself at 8kg) as the strain and having been on this end of a barrel more than once I knew there shouldn’t of been that much pressure. I dialled the drag back with the only problem being is it didn’t help… the drag was locked presumably burnt out from the previous 3 hour fight so we had no other option then to keep fighting essentially “locked up” with the can of innox on the boat being sprayed on it only giving momentarily relief. As we considered a Plan B approximately 100m of braid was stripped off another reel in the boat whilst we discussed how much line would need to be free spooled to tie another rod onto this fish and how much none of us wanted that knot in the water. At this point it got worse with the reel currently fighting the fish on popping /breaking out of the top of the reel seat which I can only put down to the pressure on the rod and the downward force from the harness pulling against it. Even with all odds against us something changed, and we started to make ground on the fish and after another 10 minutes we had colour and there was one thing that went our way that day with the fish being tail wrapped. We decided to keep this one given the stress it had been under and weighed it in later that day at 110kg.   

The final fish for the afternoon was hooked in the same way as the last and was a lot more of a smooth fight meaning the fish could be released boat side already having more then enough to take home for family and friends and we left them biting to be back to the ramp and cleaned up before dark.

I cannot thank the local people of Port Macdonnel enough for their help and hospitality over the past few days and cant speak any more highly of their facilities for fisherman. It is somewhere I will be coming back to time and time again. 

KANE REARDON I PRO STAFF

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