Bluefin Update from Cerveza Charters

August has been a good month for the Blue-Fin, Cerveza II has done 7 trips for the month, 256 hours of fishing and despite some weather issues around the middle of the month we have managed to clear all the bookings to date. The fishing has been exceptional as evidenced by the quantities of Hoki being hauled up by the trawlers and this in turn has meant large schools of Blue-Fin holding in the area. The fishing has been so good that at times it’s been simply a case of saying, “lets go and get another one”.

The fish are mostly in the range of 220 to 260kgs, though there have been the odd big ones of over 300kgs. Important for anglers who want to catch the record size fish to note that despite news reports of 300+kg fish being landed, some of the boats, unlike Cerveza, are not fishing IFGA standard tackle. In some cases these fish have been caught on 200lb mono and have also been landed by multiple anglers. Cerveza had a “monster” hooked up for 19 hours before the swivel blew, the fish was within a few meters of the boat several times and the leader tantalizingly close to the rod tip on more than one occasion. The boat is averaging six fish to the boat per trip at the moment, most being tagged and released.

 However the downside to the good season to date is that many of the joint venture trawlers have now caught there quotas and are starting to move out of the area, realistically there is perhaps one more week of the easy pickings left. A few of the Korean boats are staying on targeting Hake so it will be interesting to see if the Tuna continue to stay with these vessels and extend the season.

From Dave Wood