Albacore - Malta, Europe June '06

[skip]

This catch report is from June 2006 but I promised Pope I'd post a few.

We can succesfully report having landed 4 10-12 kgs Albacore and hooked another two which sadly didn't make it to the boat! These guys were easy to land as we had the big guns out (Smallest Reel 30/50lbs, largest 80lbs 2 Speed!) with 150lbs Spectra Backing and 80lbs mono top shot. In fact we never made it to the backing and just reeled those guys in, where they were subject to my lousy gaffing! I mutilated one of the fish with a puncture in its side, another on top behind the head which didn't hold and finally straight through from one side to the other oops! We ended up using him to chum as the flesh had turned all black!

As it was just myself and my fishing buddy Fin video footage is a bit limited (need to find it) although next time around we hope to be a min of 4 and things will be very different.

All ours were caught between 32 miles and 46 miles out, with the Albi's running around 40-70 feet below as registered on the finder, alarm was set at that depth, alarm sounds followed by a reel screaming out. From my limited experience with Albi's they rarely seem to surface to feed but instead stay at the above depths and then come up for the lures.

What was really interesting is that on the way back as we approached say within 28 miles of Malta, everything went dead, and even the fish finder wasn't showing any activity.

Excellent results with the Cedar plug daisy chain (2 fish, 3 strikes) and with our Kona jet head daisy chain with 3 tuna feather in the chain, 2 fish and 3 strikes as well.

On the way out I can report around 5-7 miles of constant jellyfish, millions of them of the small purple body with 6-7 inch tentacles completely blanketing everything being pushed in by the SE swell. These stopped at around the 20 miles mark so could be they are keeping the big game off our shores, or as we were SE towards Tunisia maybe the water was warmer out there. No thermometer so can't say for sure.

Hopefully we'll see them coming closer in the next few weeks with the warmer weather. Lots of Purse Seiners in the area we went to so def Bluefins about. Note to self, dont try and pass in between the ship and feint lights a mile or so behind it, bloody great big steel cable in between!

Should be having our insulated fish/kill by mid week so that will make storing them and keeping them cool a breeze. This baby will measure 1.9 metres across by 0.8metres high so we can get plenty of them inside with no mess.

In hindsight, the bag is too big for the fish we are carrying and boat size, but oh well!

Skip

[Ragman]

Originally Posted by skip

In hindsight, the bag is too big for the fish we are carrying and boat size, but oh well!

Skip

Always better to over prepare!