Tuna Aggregation - Part 1

Tuna Aggregation - Part 1

After another very successful season on the Pelagics and Doggies from our trailer boats which included several notable fish - my PB Wahoo of 35kg and Ant Sercombe’s PB Dogtooth over 50kgs we thought the Bluewater action was done and dusted for 2023…

“yeah mate they are still in the same spot and on the surface. Some big fish in amongst them too” - this was the message I received late yesterday afternoon which was something I was not expecting.. Why? Because of how little the opportunities are where you get to spear BIG yellowfin tuna in Australia from a trailer boat!

We launched the boat at 4.30am and headed east to a location we’d been given the previous day. I’d been trying to spear the Tuna Aggregation off Cairns since 2011 but this phenomenon only happens once a year on the full moon in November/December and you literally have to be able to drop everything you’re doing and GO!

Several factors play into this. Cyclones start around this time and weather is a huge factor as sometimes it happens up to 80nm out to sea which rules out 90% of boats especially if it’s over 10-15 knots and usually it’s Northerly which is horrible. You might only have a smaller vessel too with limited range or fuel capacity etc. It could also be mid week and no other divers are free due to work and/or family commitments. The stars really need to align and be in your favour or else the opportunity goes by for another year!

How do you know when it’s on? I’ve been lucky enough over the years to build some really good relationships with game boat captain’s and commercial fishermen who are more than helpful and willing to share information and the same goes with me if I hear anything on the grape vine or see some epic stuff while diving I’ll relay the message to them so that they can get their clients onto some epic fish too. The conditions were absolutely awesome, not a complete glass out but flat with a few small rolling waves and a very light wind that would die off as the day went on. Normally on a trip out like this I would be playing the ultimate scenarios in my head of what could be (which is me trying to figure out how I am going to hold up a 100kg YFT) and then casting huge doubts in my mind wondering if we would find these needles (sickles) in a haystack. A lot of searching, exploring and empty trips will do this to you but for some reason this trip was different. I felt different and there was no expectation or crazy thoughts running through my mind. It was like I was almost 100% confident we would find the fish but I was open to the idea of the unknown rather than the possibility there would be nothing but empty eskies once again.

We were about 500m off the mark for the area we were told the tuna would be. From this distance we could see a very small patch of birds working, not what you’d expect from an aggregation of big yellowfin tuna but as we got closer we felt like this was a sign that there would be fish in the area and not just miles and miles of open ocean that’s not going to eventuate resulting in a lot of wasted fuel and time. “Insert very excited language” at 200m away a YFT of about 50kgs launches out into the air, sickles glistening in the sun, getting all of our attention and all of a sudden any doubts are erased and the overwhelming potential of what today will bring is flooded into everyone’s minds! I don’t think 4 blokes have ever gotten suits, weight belts and guns sorted any faster than we did! In this short time another 4-5 YFT jumped out of the water ranging from 20-60kg plus!

We made the call to troll a skirt to and through a patch of birds in hope of hooking up and then we would use this technique to pull up on a patch of birds, throw in handfuls of pilchards and wait for them to come into the burley trail and eventually meet their fate by the hands of our trusty Aimrite Spearguns! “FISH ON” within seconds of hitting the birds we had a tuna on the end of the line.

Now. Let me paint a picture for you. My apprentice Dylan is a mad keen fisherman with bigger rods and more tackle than Ron Jeremy! Josh who is the founder of Reef Addicts is sponsored by Shimano. My best mate and Team Aimrite diver - Ant Sercombe doesn’t own any fishing gear at all and me, the owner of a speargun manufacturing company has 1 half decent combo which was bought with the knowledge of a brick and the budget of a homeless man! So between us all we have 1 rod (mine) which is a Fin Nor LT 100 with 100lb braid and a 24-37kg Penn Alley rod. With this combination I figured I could stop anything… or so I thought! After a relatively quick fight and telling young Dylan how good this set up was for big fish (oh man will this bite me in the ass later on), the tuna was at 30m. I told Ant and Josh to jump in and spear the fish (straight underwater gaff) as we wanted this fish in the boat and has no gloves to leader it, no gaff and no idea really! Ant shot the tuna at about 10m and after a quick struggle we had the fish on deck with high fives being thrown around like we were trying to break the Guinness world record. We estimated this fish to be about 45kg and the big sickles got us absolutely pumped for some more action!

After some quick pics in and out of the water we got our guns sorted and headed for a patch of birds, pilchards in hand ready to get one of these amazing fish on spear! Josh was filming, Ant and I had our big guns ready for these fish and within minutes a school came through eating the burley and giving us a glimpse of what we had been searching for all these years!

Previously I had only ever had 2 other opportunities at a yellowfin and that was approximately 10-12 years ago. One was a jelly bean about 7-8kg which I shot and got eaten by sharks, the other was a 70-80kg fish that sat well out of range, eating burley not getting closer than 10m at any point in time which was incredible to watch. Both times were at the Seamount off Cairns which a Mecca for diving if you can actually get there! Ant and I had a few dives but the tuna were extremely cagey meaning they would take off as soon as we left the surface. Ant said we shouldn’t dive and let them get comfortable eating burley and I agreed. Literally 20 seconds later the tuna come through, I scout around and see a few bigger fish (40-60kg) deeper and decide to let the small ones (20-30kg) eat and hopefully this will BANG!! A gun goes off. It’s Ant and he has clean missed a 20kg plus Tuna… So much for letting them eat lol…I can hardly blame him as this tuna swam up to him on the surface, turned broadside and presented a great shot and this would be the best opportunity we had at this spot the whole day.

After the tuna disappeared again we jumped on board and went searching for some bird action. Same results unfortunately… As soon as we dive, gone!! This was becoming very frustrating and common so we decided to drive around and look for more action in the area. This meant looking for more birds, checking the sounder action and trolling a line again for fun. Not 10 mins in, the rod goes off again, BANG! This time Dylan is on the rod and he struggles to get the rod out of the rod holder. He isn’t the biggest kid but he has a fair bit of experience Game fishing and fishing in general so he is very competent in what he does in this type of fishing. At first the fish was pulling a bit of line as normal so I circled back to ensure Dylan would have the best chance to gain it back and put some hurt on this fish… And this is where it truly humbled me!! As soon as Dylan put some pressure on this fish it turned toward the bottom and headed for the abyss! In a matter of seconds this fish bent the 24 37kg rod over like it was a twig, stripped 100lb braid off my reel that had 20kg of drag so fast that I told Dylan “tighten the drag up it’s loose” to which he responded “it’s max drag”. He then turned the knob to tighten it further and before we knew it the drag washer had melted and the knob fell off and into the water, the reel was literally smoking and boom! The line ran out and we lost the fish, the lure and the full spool of braid in a matter of seconds.

My ultimate rod and reel combination which I thought was bulletproof had met its match in a big way and I was left wondering how big that fish must have been. Earlier I had landed one 45kg easy as, no dramas at all but this fish absolutely smoked us. Considering we had seen fish up to 70kg we assumed it must have been this big or bigger. Either way it’s safe to say I have learnt my lesson and will need some bigger reels with more capacity before the next trip.

After this we jumped back in the water again but the tuna were hard to come across… we would see one every 10-15 mins but then nothing. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result” Albert Einstein… so with this in mind we decided to change up tactics and head towards home but on the way in we would head a different direction and look for some bird action or some floating debris. Usually when there is something floating in the water 60nm out to sea it attracts all sorts of marine life and is something magical to see for any Spearo. Species usually include big Mahi Mahi, Small wahoo, Marlin, sailfish, amberjacks, trigger fish, rainbow runners and sometimes Yellow fin Tuna!! And guess what! We found a floating chair in the middle of nowhere absolutely loaded with all the above! To be continued…. 

Travis Hogan - Owner Aimrite International