Thursday 4 April 2013

Greenly Island Hoodlums

By Jason Taylor
Well most of my fishing buddys know just how I feel about kingfish, with my very good friend George Hemming calling up and giving me the opportunity to fill a spot in just 4 weeks time for a 3 day live aboard with Absolute Fishing Charters, targeting hoodlums at Greenly Island in South Australia.  How could I possibly resist, a chance to chase monster kings with an old mate, you had me at hello.Day 1 started at the anchorage behind the island and before sun up and with two 44 gallon drums full of live baits caught the night before we deployed some liveys on the two out riggers.  Only 30 mins later ‘click’ goes the right rigger and we are definitely on!!  Fishing strike drag was no opponent for this fish as it screamed straight down heading for the protection of the reef.  Steve was the lucky angler who was taken on a merry dance including a trip up around the anchor (dirty fighters these kings) and after some tense times the fish was coaxed away from the chain and led back to the stern of the boat.  Stewies first king was netted and pulled the scales down to a very respectable 19 kilograms.  After breakfast on the way out to the jigging grounds we did a half lap of Greenly Island and quickly accounted for bag limit catches on small southern Bluefin tuna trolling small skirts with Jaks Barrel Bullet being the stand out performer.  Not to be distracted for long, this was a kingfish mission and we pressed on!  This day was the pick of the bunch in terms of weather, with the sun shining, no wind and a moderate swell.  We started our jigging campaign in 80 meters of water over pinnacles that rose to 30 meters.  We did nicely on the kingy on these peaks accounting for several was many a bust off, reefing and tangles as we dodged our way through the many cray pot lines.  George was rightfully pretty pleased with his best ever kingy of 23 kilos amongst all this madness.  Unfortunately the next 2 days were pretty much a write off due to extreme conditions which squalls to 100 km/h which kept us in the anchorage.  None the less we kept our selves busy with awesome light tackle fun on some pretty impressive silver trevally.  We did sneak out once to a reefy drop and managed some impressive captures of table fish such as XOS nanagai, just to prove everything is big here. On the last morning at about 5 am, I managed my first South Australian kingfish right in the anchorage, a modest fish of about 10 kilos, still nice for a Victorian like me.  I highly recommend Absolute, the crew and boat are exceptional and its pretty much a fortress.  The food on board is first class also – I highly recommend the tuna steaks!  Next time I will get my monster king…