Let’s roll out the barrels

BARREL is a word one often associates with beer or wine storage, not giant fish. Yet when one speaks with diehard tuna anglers, mention the word barrel and they get all excited.

I can understand why. One only has to see the size of the tuna being caught off Tasmania’s East Coat and South-East Coast.

Larger than a 44-gallon drum and much longer than a wine barrel, some of these fish are of a jaw-dropping size.

World records have been broken off our shores in the past, and each year anglers in big boats hope to be the ones to break such a record.

Most are anglers who are into tagging, yet we don’t always hear where these giant fish end up.

I say “big boats”, because the conditions most people fish in are at the best of times atrocious, yet they keep going back, time after time.

I suppose if I could catch a fish weighing up to 200kg on 30kg line I’d be out there too.

I’ve done it in the past, but sadly shoulder and back injuries have curtailed my big-game exploits.

A 15kg line seems to be the class that most anglers chasing big fish use, and the record books show that Tasmanians are up there with the best.

The original owner of the 15kg line class southern bluefin tuna world record was Ian Cutler, who caught a 78.02kg specimen caught off Cape Pillar on May 8, 1959.

This record was beaten on June 10, 1978, by Stanley Gibbon with a 99.99kg southern bluefin tuna caught off Tasman Island.

Jim Allen, founder of the Compleat Angler retail chain, smashed this record on May 11, 1980, with a 106.5kg fish also caught off Tasman Island.

Then in early October 2013, Jonah Yick broke that world record with a 107.5kg fish he caught from the back of the Hippolytes Rock.

The record at the moment is held by Karen Wright with a 143.7kg fish caught in July 2014 off Sydney.

Tasmanian lass Chloe Hammersley has several records to her name.

At the time of writing these included in the 60kg class a 104.2kg bluefin and a 112kg bluefin taken from Eaglehawk Neck in southern Tasmania in 2016 and 2017.

Chloe also holds the F-Junior class with her 112kg tuna.

Toby Nichols’ record in the M-Junior class still stands with a massive 141.05kg tuna he caught from Fortescue Bay in 2016.

So there are records there to be broken, and one wonders if this is the year we shall see yet a bigger fish caught.

Certainly a big boat of five metres-plus can help you get the bigger fish, but many have done it from small “tinnies’’.

I also know of guys breaking records with inflatable boats and fly rods.

For some it is an obsession, and good on them, I reckon. Most work hard to get what they have, and their boats are testament to the effort they put in.