The run of big southern bluefin tuna off the South Australian and Victorian coasts appears to be continuing.
Evidence of this comes via the accompanying photo recently emailed in to us by Chris “Redeye” Fowler. The photo shows the trio of fishing mates, Steve Frankland, Simon Mantel and Chris Fowler with a 125kg southern bluefin caught off Portland last week.
Of the epic encounter Fowler says, “I have done six trips from Hastings to Portland over the last month, dreaming of catching one of these big fish. After five hours of trolling around the horseshoe of Portland, one of our rods finally went into action with the fish coming up and ‘leaving a hole in the ocean’, as described by a mate of ours. Its first run was at least 500 metres. It took just on an hour before we got a look at the fish and it got a look at us, when he saw us it headed straight for the bottom for the next hour.”
It was fought on a 37kg outfit and was finally landed in two hours and 10 minutes.”
