25/05/2026
24/5/26
6:30am we depart Barwon heads in serch for a blue fin tuna , we headed straight for Apollo bay getting there just over 2 hours later and with no apparent sign of life we pushed even further and we found ourselves over 45 km south of Apollo bay heading towards Antartica 🙃 from there we looked around for an hour with not much life we started heading back towards Apollo bay and bang the ocean erupted everything dolphins birds and seals just packing in on a bait ball we did two passes with a lure out no hits and nothing on the sounder and with over 180 kilometres already travelled I decided we head in to the Apollo bay harbour to refuel , Curtly Bacon Flack the absolute legend dropped what he was doing picked up some Jerry cans filled them and brought them down for us . This was around 2pm .
Once refuelled we headed back out to where we found the eruption of life and with only a couple birds here and there it wasn’t looking good , then all of a sudden bang barrels busting up birds diving it was on ! We put our lures out made one pass and they vanished, a quick glance around and theres another bust up around 5-700 meters away so instead of pulling the lures in , we set the drag higher and cruised over in their direction at 18 kilometres an hour with lures in tow . We only got around 100 metres closer to the bust up still 4-600 meters away when the halco 210 xd gets smashed , initially thinking big thresher or mako as it jumped out of the water which we didn’t see , we only saw the explosion of water and again breaching the water then fighting on the top going left to right we thought it was definitely a shark , around 45 minutes later it breached closer to the boat and to all of our amazement it’s a bluefin tuna . The fight went for another 2 an a half hours , just over 3 hours fighting all up .
By the time we finally got it close enough to the boat to harpoon it was now 6:30pm and pitch black ! .
It came straight for the boat while I placed this harpoon straight behind its head through its hart and out its belly , the fish bled out completely before hitting the deck ! .
Now needing more fuel we headed back to the Apollo bay harbour for more fuel to ensure we make the journey back to the Barwon heads boat ramp , again thanks curt for coming back down again with more fuel and even some dinner ! , we left the harbour at 7:45pm and headed home the conditions were perfect 40km the whole way home making it to the ramp at 10:45pm after 14 hours on the water and over 350 km traveled on the water .
Pete Aitken on the rod! Landing this 102kg tuna !
This post is sponsored by Fleet Locksmiths PTY LTD
