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Special All Right

Low and behold and special it was. On 14 July 2020 he struck a fish that stuck, fought and was then boated - a southern bluefin tuna that pulled the scales down to 120kg. It was a momentous day and the fishermen of Tasmania were stunned. There were two very distinct camps. Those that were equally as amazed as they were as excited wanting to know more and work out what was going on. Then there was the same old tired crew of haters and doubters that went to the mindless conclusion that the fish was caught somewhere else and it was staged like some fabled moon landing. I mean really?

The energy burnt in coming up with this nonsense and discussing it on private hate pages doesn’t even beggar belief. What did stand tall was the man Glen who instantly spread the word on how it was achieved and what they did in the hope that others would head out and share in the amazing fishery that was breaking for the first time.

A ‘fluke’ is listed in a dictionary as “an unlikely chance occurrence, especially a surprising piece of luck.” And this is what most who did believe the capture story thought it must be. That was until another one was caught on 16 May 2021 pulling the scales down to 107kg. You guessed it … by none other than Glen Saltmarsh. Then another by Glen and crew on the 21 May that went 95kg.

This was now a ‘phenomenon’ – “a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen whose cause or explanation is in question.”

One thing was now never in doubt and no one would ever question. Glen Saltmarsh is a fishing legend that not only started off a big push of snapper fishing off Devonport, but also has broken a southern bluefin fishery that never existed. A trail blazer that discovered something very special and also helped push others to try their luck, and try they did.

The Devonport boat ramp was alive with boats all heading out trying their luck. You could not buy an overhead reel set up for for tuna for love nor money. It was a gold rush. Everyone had Jumbo fever and it was on for young and old. Fish were being caught with reasonable consistency and they were all Jumbos. Dave Carter 120kg cleaned, Harry Murfet 125kg, Joshua Wolfe 133kg and Tony Beswick with a fish that was around 130kg. The smallest of these fish caught was a 75kg specimen by Ned Fitzallen. Then just to get back into Jumbo land with a fish over the 100. It was the Tasman Sea terror Doug McDerrmott, fighting out of the Black and White corner all the way from Rotorua that felled a fish that went 108kg.

Then there were the heartbreak stories of the solid hook ups that were dropped. The Purton boys dropped one and on the same day due to youthful enthusiasm and sheer stupidity I dropped a massive fish as well. Michael Banham dropped a good fish and Glen proved that he too is human hooked and dropped one as well.

“Fast forward to October just gone and there were two captures that fired every one up again. Kyle Woodhouse and Tyson Hutton set the world on fire with a fish that went 145kg and Jamien Branch and his mate Trent Hardwicke found one that weighed 98 kg. Kyle and Tyson’s fish was a fantastic capture if it was off the traditional SBT grounds off Tasmania, but to come out of the Mersey River and nail it “off Port Sorell Point” is a remarkable achievement. The two lads were pumped and rightfully so. Here is some of their story …

At first the day was a bit of a flop, my young bloke (2yo) has been asking every other day to go fishing in Dad’s boat, so I decided Monday was the day since the weather was looking flat as a tack, the plan was to go get after some salmon for him to have a bit of a play with. So Sunday night I got the boat ready. All pumped up for my son’s first fishing trip in the boat.... Monday morning, you think I could get that little bugger anywhere near the boat. There goes that plan. I decide I’ll get a crew together and go on the hunt for the elusive

Bass Strait Barrel... yep that’s right couldn’t get a crew together. I’d pretty much given up on going out now. About 1.30 I get a call from Kyle Woodhouse “what’s going on? Looks like this job in Smithton is going to fall through, wanna go drag some lures?” “Definitely” “I’ll be home by 3.” Long story short 3pm we’re on the water. The plan was to head to an area we had seen a lot of good signs in the past weeks and try to find some schools of bait. By good I mean bait that appears to be being worked into columns and spot at least 2 or 3 combinations of predators. Luckily it didn’t take long to find what we were looking for. We found three good bait columns, with seals and dolphins in the area along with some terns and gannets that seemed to be scanning the same rough area waiting for something to happen. Now once we found this, the plan was to STAY in this area and grind it out. About an hour into sketching the Bermuda triangle into the plotter (over and over our three bait columns) we saw what we had been waiting for, dolphins cutting up the surface erratically with turns bombing the surface. One of the bait balls was up on top. We made a beeline for the feed. We had based our spread on what we thought they might be feeding on, a combination of redbait and pilchards. Leaning more towards the redbait colours as these have produced hookups on more than a few occasions in the new capital (and the fact I didn’t have a Halco pilchard in the boat) we were running a Halco coral trout 190 XXD on the short corner, Meridian demon in the slimy colour on the long rigger, Pakula Cockroach in redbait billy on the shotgun miles out the back and a 3d fish print Pakula in redbait on the short rigger, the trap was set. As we approached the feed my hopes were increasing as we could see seals, dolphins and birds smashing through the bait. The first pass. We were both dead quiet in anticipation......

BRAAAAAAAAAAAAA Meridian gets demolished, the Tiagra starts screaming

“YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH” “ WE’RE ON” we jumped up to clear the lines, we barely get the first lure out of the water and bang the line goes slack Devastation. I’m not going to repeat here what was said on the boat but I think you get the idea. Ok time to stop sooking and get back on them before they’re off the chew, we reset the spread and double back for another pass. Nothing...... Again.... Nothing. Third time

lucky....... BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Red Bait Billy, reel screaming the boys are up and about again (also screaming).

This time we get the lines clear, Kyle Woodhouse is strapped in, the fight is on, well kind of, the first 5 minutes is just the sound of a spool being dumped at a million metres a second. We let him take every bit of available line before we turn to reclaim it. We chase him down and get a good amount of line back on the spool before we circle around to force him into another run. We let him dump the spool again before we go back to reclaim some more, then bang the line goes slack..”F@#$$##$#” “hold on Woodhouse” I swing the boat around and gun the throttle to try to get him tight again. “Yep he’s still on” thank f$@$# for that. The fight continued this way for around 30 minutes. Yep you guessed it, slack line again, I gun it again in an attempt to come up tight, I look back and see my worst fear... the lure bouncing across the surface behind the boat. “Well we’re up shit creek now”. Finding them again now felt like an impossible task. Getting one hookup out here is a dream, two is just ridiculous, the chances of hooking up again are pretty much zero. As you can imagine the mood on the boat was pretty low to say the very least. So now it’s back to the grind. We head back to the “strike zone” to find any sign of action. Nothing. No birds, no dolphins, no seals, no bait and definitely no fish. Gutted. We decided working our way out from where we last hooked up, in big circles was our best shot at tripping over them again. We did this for what seemed like hours, but in reality it was more like 45 minutes. A glimmer of hope, a whale blow in the distance, we hone in on the area and spot birds feeding on the surface, as we get closer we see the tell tale signs. The feed is on, this time the mutton birds are in on the action, and they are thick. We circle around the feed to avoid ploughing the boat through the middle, and pushing what might be there down. We drag the spread through 3,4,5 times... Nothing. On maybe the 9th or 10th pass we line up the direction of the feed to attempt to get the lures through in a straight line. The frenzy reaches the corner of the transom and moves into the spread like clockwork. Nothing.... I look back “surely they’re here”. I look back at the vapour trail coming off the 3D pakula. Old bucket mouth!. It was like watching the USS Growler steaming up behind it and then opening up a black hole. That lure DISAPPEARED. This time there was no yelling and screaming, no dancing on the deck, just level heads and light drag.

We had already pulled the hooks on 2 jumbos, there’s no reef to get busted off on, no big seals to steal him off the line and relatively shallow water so we kept the drag down around 6-8 kilos on 37kg tackle and Woodhouse begins the fight. I couldn’t tell you how many times that fish dumped the spool in the first 2 hours. We stayed calm and sent a few videos through to the boys, one of them being the pioneer of this fishery Glen Saltmarsh. Five minutes later my phone rings, of course, it’s Salty. “What’s happening out there” I give him a quick rundown on the ridiculous turn of events, “you boys need a hand?”. I said “mate if you want to drive out here and get on board I ain’t gonna say no.” “I’ll ring around see if someone will drive my boat out.” Salty made some 500 phone calls and finally Mitch Jones steps up to the task, and mate I can’t thank you enough. The fight continued for another hour, during which I had to relieve myself at the helm... there’s no way I’m leaving the wheel haha. I get a call from Salty “which boat are you mate? My GPS just lost power.” “Hahaha you’re kidding me, we’re the furthest one out.”

“Righto I’ll see you in a minute.” On the horizon we see 610 Quinny charging through the chop towards us, as the boys get closer I signal the position of the fish and where I want them to pull up. Mitch noses the bow up to the port side and Salty jumps on board extra gaff and spotlight in hand and dishes out some high fives and hugs, the mood in the boat is sky high. I take a break while Salty takes the wheel.

The fish takes another huge run - Salty gives us a run-down on what’s worked for him fighting big fish out here, letting them run reclaiming line then forcing the fish to change direction by circling around and cutting him off, and not letting the fish cruise along in one direction to rest. It’s gotta be line in or line out, no stalemates. The fight continues into the fading light as we watch Mitch disappear on the horizon (with no GPS ). Now it’s pitch black, Salty at the helm, I’m on the spotlight and Woodhouse is still on the rod. We’re maybe 4 hours in now. We’ve had the double out of the water a few times now and the runs are getting shorter, we’re starting to win the battle. We get him up again, this time the double reaches the rod tip, we get a pretty good look at him as he cruises alongside the boat - he’s a good’un, we estimate 80 to 90kg.

In the blink of an eye he does the classic big tuna thing and charges straight under the bottom of the boat, no time to react Salty slams the boat in neutral, I dive over the gunwales to grab the leader to keep it off the boat and away from the trim tabs. He turns and heads out the back of the boat. Now the line is between the outboard and the trim rams, what a f@#%ing disaster, we’re going to lose him after all this. By now Salty has trimmed the motor up and is hanging over the other side of the transom trying desperately to keep the line away from the tabs. Strangely the fish is just kind of hanging there like a dead weight, it felt like the line was in danger for an eternity.

Finally he turns and heads back out the direction he came in. I try to get a feel of the double and leader to see if has been scuffed up but he takes off again at a million miles a minute. But not for long, the runs are getting increasingly shorter and he’s starting to come to the surface and do the big thrashing head shakes. We get the double all the way on the rod, the plan is, when I can get my hands on the leader I’ll pass the spotlight to Woodhouse, he’ll operate it with his left and wind up the slack with his right. I let Salty know we’re going to get a gaff shot on him, he leaves the wheel and keeps the boat cruising along in gear, I leader the fish up past the transom... he’s getting bigger, we get him alongside the boat and holy shit that thing went from 80-90kg to a world record sized fish real quick, seeing that head come out of the water the first time is an image that will be burned into our memories for a long while. Salty sinks the gaff...... This thing goes absolutely ape shit, like mako ape shit. It’s thrashing that hard it almost knocks us both off our feet “I can’t hold him” Salty yells as the thing prop washes us and dives for the bottom, along with the gaff. We all just look at each other in shock. That thing is a beast. We all burst out in nervous laughter, what a machine. This time we’re not taking any chances, I hitch the flying gaff to the corner cleat of the transom. This fish surfaces again “well Salty ya didn’t lose ya gaff” this beast is just cruising along towing the pole gaff behind it, I think it worked in our favor as it was pretty easy to see the metallic gold handle in the spotlight. We let him run a couple of times, “how ya going Woodhouse you all good?” “I’ve got another 5 hours in me” he laughed. We closed the gap again and executed the plan once more, I grabbed the leader again, no crazy marlin wraps you don’t want to go to hard on the leader with big tuna you’re a good chance of pulling the hooks. We get him up beside the boat Salty makes a good shot with the flyer, lucky we tied it off because it headed for the bottom again with no chance of hanging on to the rope. We pulled him back to the surface I reached for the pole gaff (still in him from the first attempt). I held on to both gaffs while Salty removed the dive door, we guided the fish around to get him in. Salty holds on to the fish with the flyer while I remove the pole gaff so as I can hook him under the chin, to make it easier to pull him in. Woodhouse gets out of his home for the last 5 hours (the gimbal and harness) we all get on the gaff and begin to heave this behemoth in through the dive door “PULL” I yell “I F-ING AM” was the reply from both the boys. BOOOM the thud of that fish hitting the deck rattled every rod in the rocket launcher. “YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH” Let me tell you if we weren’t before, the boys were absolutely up and about now, holy shit what a feeling. I don’t think there are words that can describe the emotion that I was feeling. I could probably bang on forever, but I think a lot of you have seen the live feed that began shortly after this moment. The greatest day on the water to date, this is why we all do it, moments like these that will stay with us forever. 145kg is in the boat.

This activity and excitement has all game fishers keen and again boats went to sea in numbers. Skipper Clinton Howe and I were no exception and we spent

10 hours on the water at the other end of the spectrum. The Bass Strait Barrel grind. It is a thing.

The fish are traveling with the whales but not every whale has tuna with it. So you have to work over an area and see if you can pull an SBT out from under a dolphin and bird feed that inevitably starts when the whale starts to feed. We had some of the best feeds and sea surface signs you will ever see, but for no hook up. We tried to bring on a fish with some tasty muffins and ham, but no good. We even tried a couple of “bring a fish on” Canadian Clubs. Still no good. A boat had hooked up in the morning and we still couldn’t believe we knew the crew. They had waltzed out pretty much the same time we did. Hooked a fish, reeled it in and were back home before lunch. We continued to grind .

We saw the pics of their fish and were stoked to see Willy and Popey and Dave Maxwell at the SEAMASTER Marine gantry with a fish that went 95kg. All these fish and not one school sized tuna to be seen. So we kept grinding away. Two other boats hooked up and dropped their fish after about 5 minutes of tussle so that kept us keen for another few hours. We had to pull stumps as the sun was going down and it was an epic day. We may not have had a strike or seen a tuna, but we were in the mix. We listened to music and we remembered our great mate Mozza and willed the reel to go off. It was not to be, but the good news is that it’s all to be done next time and that is what keeps us going back. Catching a jumbo in the full view of the Forth River valley is my new goal and I will keep trying.

I want to make a personal thank you to Glen Saltmarsh for having the gumption and drive to get out there and discover a brand new fishery of southern bluefin that just did not exist 3 years ago. A Ridgey Didge, Cobber, Dingo, True Blue ANZAC that has created something that will go down in history. I tip my hat to you man and I and the many fishermen on the North West coast thank you.

If you are wanting to get in and get the good oil on Bass Strait Barrels pop in and see Harry and Glen who now works full time at SEAMASTER MARINE in Devonport. Tight Lines and watch the weather.

Kelly Hooch Hunt