By James,

So I went out in my tinny (small aluminium open top boat approx 3m long) off the coast of Portland in Victoria, Australia for a fish one day. I run the charter boat business with my Dad but we had a day off so I thought I’d try my luck closer to the shore with some Fresh bait. Normally the big fish school up to 30 Nautical Miles offshore but this day I was only a few hundred meters offshore when it felt like a fricken Marlin hammered my bait and ran like a cheetah. I only had a 20kg (40 pound) set-up because I was just after the smaller Big Eye or Albacore that come closer in shore.

So my rod is already bending like a mofo and I quickly increased the drag so it wouldn’t snap. Luckily I had anchored otherwise I would definitely been dragged offshore another mile. I knew this fish was massive and it wasn’t a shark or ray because it was running like crazy. At this time my boat is tilted to one side and the anchor rope is so tight I thought it was going to snap.

This fish is taking me out and back and in circles like they usually do so I was pretty sure that it was a tuna by this stage. Anyway to cut a long story short it took me 3 and a half hours to reel this monster into the boat (and it almost didn’t fit). We weighed it when I got back and its near the record for down there. I think Paul Worstling caught a massive 180kg+ monster off the New Zealand coast but this tuna came close at 130kg. Wasn’t the afternoon’s fishing I had planned but what a fight.