New to this forum with a down under report.

[Gozz]

Hy guys.
I live in Australia "Melbourne" and I thought I'd share a report and some pic's so you can see what we down here.

On this day we where at a place called Port Mac about a 7hour drive from Melb,here we chase mainly Southern fin tuna which can range from 8kg all the way to 150kg.
There are much bigger fish out there of around 350kg but due to overfishing by the pro's you don't see anything like that any more.

We where very lucky this particular morning because as we where heading out o the shelf around 35km from the boat ramp when we saw some birds working only 7km from the ramp we set out a couple lures behind the boat and with in minutes we had a triple hook up and our friends had 5 rods go off all at once in there boat.
After 20 min we had all 3 fish in the boat and our mates had 3 out of 5 in theres.
My mate holding one of the fish approx 18kg.

After a few more on the TLD 50's and Tiagra 50's we thought we'd let my little
spheros 8000 have a go.
The fish pushed the stock standard 8000 to the max but it came out on top with a heap of fish under it's belt.


A couple more photos of the day.
We where gaffing a fish one side and our mate fighting a fish on the other side.

We ended up keeping 6 fish as wee all love fresh tuna and so do our family's.
We let 3 go free,our friend had 15 fish for the day and kept 6,they let the rest go.


A tuna on a rapala x-rap.


A couple of weeks before this trip we fished a place called Portland which is 1.5hrs closer to home but the shelf is 75km further.
The fish where bigger and this one went 35kg.

[kidflex]

welcome to 360tuna. very nice haul, you guys down under definately have some good fishing. how did the rapala x rap hold up to the tuna?

[Snagged]

Welcome aboard. It looks like you still have a great fishery there.

[gimmedeal]

Gotta love gettin into fish 4 miles off the ramp. I would imagine the price of fuel is affecting fishing down under too. Welcome to the board and really great trip man.

Fred

[Bret]

Welcome and nice report!

[STx Fisherman]

Welcome to the board, mate.
Great pics...thanks for posting.

Do you ever jig for those tuna?

[Gozz]

Thanks for the welcome guys.
Yeah fuel is $1.80 p/l which is about $7.50 a gallon I think.
Thank god for 4 strokes.
The rapala x-rap is a beautiful swimming lure and tracks really well at up to 30feet.we run it at about 15feet.
It handled the school sized fish with out a problem,fish have been caught down here up to 60kg without giving way but thats about the biggest we'd go before changing hooks to a beefier set.
Yeah 4 miles,we saw a boat hooked up even closer as we where heading back to the ramp.

[Uncle Russ]

My welcome as well, Gozz. Those of us who are Texans keep looking at your pictures wondering where the offshore oil rigs are.

Russ

[hatidua]

Good to hear the X-Rap did alright. I found a place that had them on sale recently and bought a dozen to try on the yellowfin in Mexico. I imagine those Southern Bluefin are tasty

[Gozz]

Originally Posted by Uncle Russ

My welcome as well, Gozz. Those of us who are Texans keep looking at your pictures wondering where the offshore oil rigs are.

Russ

Ha ha ha it does look like a good place for it.