Lots Of Record Size Bluefin Caught In South Australianff

This is no tall tale or ‘one that got away’ story - astonished anglers are pulling in some of the biggest tuna ever recorded in Victorian history.

Anglers from Portland to Port Fairy in Victoria’s south west are scrambling for the heavy-duty fishing gear, with reports of tuna weighing almost quadruple the state’s average being caught, and massive schools of the fish gathering off the coast of Portland.

”We’ve seen tuna for thirty odd years come through; tuna sort of come through in a spasm, it’s something to do with the El Nino currents, but every seven years you get a cycle of a couple years where you get what we call traditionally ‘normal’ tuna which is on average about 20 kilos, and the state record in Victoria is about 33 kilos approximately, and that’s what you expect in a big fish” says Bob McPherson, an angler based in Portland. “The boys at Port Fairy got one that was about 85 kilos, kudos to them, they exposed ‘em and that’s what jumped a lot of blokes into gear to start looking for them, and they're going out a lot further than what we normally do.”

For professional anglers it’s not so much manna from heaven as money from the depths, as aside from the boost to one's reputation in landing one of these monsters, blue fin tuna command a very healthy price at the markets back on dry land.

”They’re worth a fortune to the Port Lincoln boys; look, the money is just mind-boggling, it makes abalone look really ordinary in comparison with the price of ‘em, really,” he says.

Has he had his own chance to land one of these giant blue fin tuna?

”83 kilos, yeah, with another mate. They’re not a one-man fish, you couldn’t pull ‘em in the boat they’re that big, you’d need a forklift; a couple of blokes who are a bit hefty can pull ‘em in,” he replies. “Terry Roberts put in here and got a 110 ten kilo one here last week; the one that came in was 119 kilos – it’s two meters long, 550mm across the girth, without the fins.”

The word is out amongst Victoria’s angling community, with professional boats traveling from interstate for some of the action and something of a boom on for those selling heavy-duty fishing gear in the town of Portland.

”They’re more or less out the back of here [Portland] but they’re putting in from Port Fairy, and Port Mac [MacDonnell, South Australia], too, and they’re all in a big arc about 40-50 mile long on the continental shelf,” he says of his fellow professional anglers, reminding listeners to the South West Mornings program this isn’t time for the amateurs to start packing the ‘tinny’ to get some of the action. “[It’s roughly] 26 to 30 miles [from the coast]... you wouldn’t even attempt it if you didn’t have sea skills and been around. Not for the novice - and you need gear; some of the blokes are using stuff that’s about 3,000 bucks a pop, they’ve got about ten of them in the boat - these blokes have better jobs than most people,” he adds in a somewhat droll tone.

”Just to give people an idea - the first one they nailed in Warrnambool was 85 kilos, they used a really tough line, a 50 kilo line, and it took them four hours - they were still out there at 9 o'clock on the shelf in the dark, when they got it in the boat,” he says. “People are probably wondering how big they grow; as far as we know from records they grow as big as 200 kilos, which could be 9 or 10 foot long, we don’t know.”

So is he heading out this weekend?

”Oh yeah. I’ve never seen ‘em in my life get this big.”

This 245 kilo blue fin tuna set the record back in 1936; off the coast of Portland anglers are hunting down this kind of catch.