Late season dorado

On Saturday 19^th May, At and I launched “ABF” off Vidal. The Cape Vidal Ski Boat Club was hosting their annual junior competition so there were quite a few boats that had launched. We were lucky to be able to use their tractor, so launching was a breeze.

The SW wind was blowing a bit, and there was the odd raincloud that dampened the party, but other than that, the sea was not bad. We sounded around a bit and managed to get a few nice livies in the well. We still didn’t have much of a game plan so we put on a few lures and trolled around. It didn’t take long to get a pull and soon we had a yellowfin bled and on ice. Trolling commenced and in the next hour we had a few more pulls and released 2 kawakawas and 2 more yellowfin.

We were still off the point so decided to switch over to bait and see if there were a few other species around. I had one line out and was busy with the second when I saw a big splash behind us. The rod in the holder next to me keeled over the reel smoked off. At took the strike and fought the strong fish. It gave him a run for his money and finally had a 14kg yellowfin in the hatch. There were a few bait shoals on the surface in 30 to 35m so we made a few turns through them. We missed a fish on the midwater bait and a few minutes later had a pull on the surface bait which stuck. I wound the line tight until the fish started taking line, then passed the rod to At. The fish surfaced and jumped a few times. It was a bit strange to get a dorado this late in the season. We loaded the fish and were excited at the idea of having freshly caught dorado fillets for supper.

We slowly tacked south and whenever we intercepted a bait shoal, we would get a pull. Unfortunately, none were cuda, but it was fun to get pulls from a skippy and a few more yellowfins, the majority of which were released. By 1pm, we decided to call it a day and went in to beach with a tally of 1 dorado, 1 skipjack, 2 bonito and 6 yellowfin.