PORT LINCOLN TUNA CLASSIC

Rohdey and Dizz, from All the Geat but No Idea, fished one of SA’s premier gamefishing tournaments. They caught plenty and learned even more.

There’s a nice charity component to the tournament

This year’s Port Lincoln Tuna Competition has to be one of the most memorable fishing experiences we have ever been involved in, and something that should be on every fishing person’s bucket list. The 2024 competition was the 18th event held in the pristine waters offshore Port Lincoln on the stunning Eyre Peninsula. We packed all the gear, and arrived with no idea, but were ready to hopefully catch some amazing southern bluefin tuna aboard James Manna’s 2400 Stabicraft called ‘Going Grey’.

The competition is now run by two mad keen fishing and boating enthusiasts, Steven Toome and Ashley White. They took over the running of the competition in 2023, and have continued to build on the success that previous organisers have had over the years.

The competition is split into two distinct categories in which teams compete. The Calcutta Competition features an auction on the Friday night before the weekend, in which each boat is ‘purchased’ (often by the team that is fishing aboard the boat). The biggest fish caught across the two days fishing is the winner of this, with 70 per cent of the total auction pool going to the winner, or whoever purchased that boat. Second place takes 20 per cent of the pool, third gets 5 per cent and the remaining 5 per cent is donated to Variety The Children’s Charity, which also has other fundraising events across the weekend.

The second part of the competition is the ‘Shootout’, or the catch and release side of the event, where teams report how many fish they catch as a team and also as individuals. This features some amazing prizes that are donated by incredible sponsors and are awarded across a number of different categories that are largely broken into above or below 8m boats.

Braydon Aldridge, REALITY CHEQUE, Champion Angler

The organising team works closely with Tuna Champions, and sustainable fishing is at the core of the event. In 2020 the competition became the first Australian fishing event that is treble-free to ensure the fish have the greatest chance of survival when released. Competitors are encouraged to predominately catch and release their fish, with only fish that are being weighed in for the Calcutta Competition being kept.

Teams are provided education on best practices for handling and releasing fish by Indy Thompson from Tuna Champions prior to the event, who also covered the best way to dispatch and care for fish to be taken home and eaten. This year tags were also available for collection, and competitors were encouraged to contribute to research through the Tuna Citizen Science Program through Recfish SA and the SA Bluefin Tuna Industry Association.

The competition has a great family friendly atmosphere with lots of kids in attendance all across the weekend, including a number who fished with their families and competed for a number of great prizes on offer for junior anglers. Female anglers are also well represented with prizes. In last year’s event an all female crew ‘ The Salty One’ took out the Calcutta Competition for the largest fish caught. The girls were back again this year and were keen to go for back-to-back honors. The competition follows many of the IGFA rules and is exclusively fished with 10kg monofilament line, which does take some practice if you have never fished with this set up before. We had some advice from Steve and Ash when we had them on the podcast to do a pre-fish to get familiar with the line and gear to ensure we were in a good position to challenge for the prizes up for grabs.

PE 3-4 overhead outfits are ideal for this competition

A couple of evenings in the lead up to the comp were spent setting up the boat, swapping lures from trebles to single hooks, setting up legal wind-on leaders and ensuring the reels were set with appropriate drag pressures. We also did a pre fish off Cape Jervis with James to learn the set up of his boat, how to use things such as his outriggers and how he likes to run his spread of lures. We ran a combination of Shimano Speedmaster and Talica overhead reels in size 10, as these give great control over the drag, which is really important when running the mono line. These were matched to PE 3-4 overhead rods which are light to handle when fighting a fish, but still have enough ‘grunt’ when needed and have a soft tip to allow the lures to swim with a nice action.

We headed over to Port Lincoln on Wednesday evening with plans on having a pre fish to find the tuna in preparation for the competition days. Here we met up with our crew, Skipper James and his brother-in-law Matt Schultz, both of whom were lining up for their fifth crack at the competition. The boys had spent a few extra days on the Eyre Peninsula and had already cleaned up on tuna, samson fish and kingfish at Rocky Island, which was more than enough to make us jealous.

Unfortunately, the weather didn’t play the game on the Thursday, giving us a day to prepare the boat and ensure all of our gear was ready to go. That night a tackle talk and boat display was held at Jumpship Brewery – a local micro-brewery with fantastic beers and excellent food – that has jumped on board as a sponsor of the competition. Steve and Ash arranged to have two boats inside the brewery on display to get everyone excited – the Tidal Flare 24, and Veitch 27. We hosted a live podcast on the night, interviewing a few of the competitors, hearing stories of past successes and trying to get some tips and tricks out of them prior to the competition. Shane from Tackleworld Port Lincoln gave some information about different tackle options and ran through some of the rules, while Indy from Tuna Champions also shared their message about best management of tuna, whether being kept for dinner or released safely.

Bright and early on the day before the competition we headed out from Port Lincoln on the search for tuna, wanting to find the biggest fish and most schools, in order to guide our strategy for the next two days. We headed south through Thorny Passage and past Cape Catastrophe, exploring around Williams Island without seeing any promising signs. Some blind trolling around Low Rocks where good fish have been caught in the past was also unsuccessful, so the decision was made to keep pressing further ashore.

Eventually we found birds and then tuna between South and North Neptune Islands. After quickly landing half a dozen fish and getting ourselves reacquainted with the stretchy 10kg monofilament line, we moved on. Circumnavigating South Neptune Island was something none of us had ever done, so it was good to explore some new territory, however there were no tuna to be seen. We did stop on several large lumps to drop the jigs, hoping for a kingfish or samson fish, but had no luck. After a quick lunch stop we started the long trek back to Port Lincoln, having covered 230km for the day. After having found only one decent school of fish, we felt this wasn’t the best spot to target in the competition. A quick refuel and stock up of the fridge and eskies and we were all set for the competition to begin.

On the Friday night all teams gathered at the Port Lincoln Marina Hotel for the briefing and Calcutta Auction. Teams were again reminded of some important rules, shown how to best gut and gill a tuna and also how to tag a fish, before the attention moved onto the auction. Some donated goods were first auctioned to raise money for Variety the Children’s Charity, with competitors picking up some really good items donated from sponsors and also supporting a great cause. All 28 boats were then auctioned off, with plenty of mates happy to bump up each others’ prices, but in the end in most cases each boat was purchased by its own crew. The total prize pool was $91,400 with the first prize for heaviest fish set at $63,980.

The Saturday morning ‘shotgun start’ is a great spectacle, with boats lining up across the bay ready for an 8am departure. Teams then dash across the bay towards Cape Donnington before deciding which direction they are heading to fish. With beautiful conditions, this year was a true test of the fastest boats fighting it out for bragging rights. The two Veitch 27s and a 28 foot Boston Whaler from Darwin were among the fastest boats and first to hit the open water.

From here we headed due east towards Buffalo Reef, which sits just to the south-east of the Sir Joseph Banks Group, a set of islands renowned for plentiful and big King George Whiting. We had heard whispers there were plenty of fish around here and, being relatively closer to Port Lincoln, we thought it gave us a shot at catching the first fish of the competition.

Arriving bang on the 9am radio announcement that the competition was open, we rushed to set the spread and began trolling towards some bird action. Bang, we were on and Rohdey was fighting a fish by 9.02am. We thought we were a chance at taking out the fuel voucher from Eyre Fuels for the first fish caught, but mid fight, we were pipped at the post, with Heatseeker, a beautiful Northbank 750 Hard Top owned and skippered by Shane from Tackleworld Port Lincoln, radioed in that they had landed a 100cm tuna. This not only took out the first fish, but also put themselves in a great early position for the largest fish; a tuna this size would have easily been the largest caught in the previous year’s competition. We landed our fish, which measured in at a respectable 92cm, and were quickly back on the hunt.

The early action certainly didn’t stop there. We managed to catch 13 tuna within the first 50 minutes, with all four anglers getting in on what was a very hot early bite. The fish took a combination of Troll So Hard skirts and a variety of hard body divers, including Nomad DTX, Speed Donkeys and the ever reliable Halco Laser Pro. We were also able to cash in and often catch an extra fish casting hard body lures into the school while the others were fighting their own fish. Most of these tuna were in the mid to high 80cm range, with a couple of them going 92 and 93cm – not winning fish, but still a pretty good size and plenty big enough to run us around on the 10kg monofilament line.

There were 5-10 boats fishing this area for the first couple of hours before others who had headed out to try other areas got wind of the action and came over to join in. As the fleet of boats grew and the sun rose higher into the sky, the bite slowed down. It became a bit of a grind through the middle of the day, with very little bird action to be found and the fishing quite slow. We chipped away at a couple more fish on the blind troll, but by mid afternoon the decision was made for a change of location.

After packing up the rods and outriggers we headed further south-east to Rosalind Shoal in the search of a hot afternoon bite and less boating pressure. The decision quickly paid off when six more tuna hit the deck, with a 98cm southern bluefin tuna caught by Matt being the highlight. This briefly put us in the race for the podium of the biggest fish before a radio check in from the crew of Checkmate, who were fishing close to us at the time, revealed they had caught a 105cm fish to take the lead. Quickly the 6pm end to the day’s fishing was upon us, and we finished the first day with 21 fish and started the trek across to Memory Cove where the anchorage was set up.

The Saturday night in Memory Cove was another highlight, with much of the competition’s fleet all converging in the protected and picturesque bay in the southeastern corner of Port Lincoln National Park. In previous years one of the original tuna polling boats, the Tacoma, has acted as the mothership, however this year the famous old boat was undergoing repairs and was unavailable. Instead, the Peacekeeper, a local cray boat, was substituted in, as well as a separate fuel barge, pre-loaded with 200 litre drums of fuel that the smaller boats of the fleet could access. A hot meal of meatballs and pasta was just what the crews needed after a long day on the water. There was a great atmosphere, with plenty of stories, tactics and banter flying around, while the sponsors looked after us with beers, wine and local pastries. Initially it was some of the kids who were catching squid that were drawn into the light before the adults got hooked in and we quickly had the bag limit.

The boys looking pleased with a pair of chunky bluefin

After a short, but peaceful sleep in Memory Cove we were up early and heading south-west towards the southern lump of the Cabbage Patch where we had heard reports of bigger fish caught and lost or sharked on the Saturday. The Cabbage Patch is made up of two large lumps that come up from the ocean floor at around 100m and rise to a depth of about 20-30m. They are renowned for holding big fish and sit about 20 nautical miles south of Sleaford Bay, but a long way from the nearest major boat ramps at Port Lincoln.

We arrived in time to start fishing at 8am with some bird action, and the occasional bust up of fish and bait was enough to keep us interested, but this was certainly not the hot bite we had encountered the day before. It was nice to have a couple of other boats for company, as it is always comforting to have another crew nearby when fishing so far from shore. We managed to catch six more tuna across the morning, with the fish seeming more flighty and quickly diving deep as we approached towing lures or ready to throw stick baits at them. Ham and cheese croissants, pies and sausage rolls out of the pie warmer kept us interested and full of energy after a few big days.

As time was running out to try another spot before the close of fishing at 3pm, we decided to briefly put the 10kg mono tuna outfits away, swapping for heavier tackle and knife jigs to have a crack at some of the large arches we had been seeing on the sounder as we trolled around. Fishing with a Shimano Twinpower 10,000 and Saragosa 10,000 with 50lb braid, we were super keen to catch samson fish that the area is famous for and neither of us had ever caught. A couple of drops with no luck had us wondering if it wasn’t to be our day, but this quickly changed when the third drop led to a quick double hook up!

Rohdey had his bust off and was quickly left re-tying a swivel while Dizzy got stuck into what was sure to be a big fish. After couple of heavy runs and a 15 minute battle before we saw colour, a grey fish, followed by a large mass of dark grey had us thinking the fish was about to be taken by a shark. Eventually a good size samson fish was landed while the big shape we had seen ended up being a massive school of other sambos following it up! Dizzys fish went 100cm on the dot and, after plenty of high fives and photos, it was safely released.

Meanwhile, Rohdey had got his rod back in the water and was jigging hard alongside our other crew member Matt. A couple of hits without hooking up before Rohdey was on too! Another good fight ensued with what we thought would be another samson fish, and all of a sudden we both understood why they are so highly regarded for their fighting ability. Once the second fish was landed we were both pumped to have ticked another trophy species off our bucket lists. Rohdey’s fish was a bit smaller, going 89cm, and this time we were a bit more organised and put a tag in the fish before a quick photo and sending it back down to the depths.

Samson fish were a bonus catch toward the end of the comp

With time quickly running out, we headed to the northern lump of the Cabbage Patch for a look around and after a bit of a blind troll without any luck we packed up and headed towards Port Lincoln, still hoping to spot some more fish on the way back. With about 30 minutes left on the clock, the lures were still in the water, blind trolling towards home but our hopes were quickly fading. Some action lit up the sounder and straight away we were on. One tuna was landed while another was hooked on a casting rod and all of a sudden the fishing was hot. We landed seven more fish and lost a couple of others as the time ticked away and the competition came to a close. None were worth keeping to weigh in, leaving us with a 98cm tuna we caught late on the Saturday as our best fish, while we were fairly happy with our total tally of 34 tuna. In amongst the action at the end of the day, another boat, Risky Business, had radioed in another catch that was neck and neck with the longest fish caught for the weekend, meaning the weigh in that night would be eagerly awaited.

We headed home to Port Lincoln, with beautiful calm seas and a couple of beers a great way to end the weekend’s fishing. 11 fish were dropped off at the Marina Hotel to be weighed in for the Calcutta Competition, while a total of 540 southern bluefin tuna were caught and released across the 28 boats.

The presentation night was a fitting way to wrap up what had been a great weekend’s fishing and to celebrate and share a drink with plenty of mates and new friends we had made across the weekend. The weather gods had been in our favour, plenty of fish were caught and all of the banter across the whole weekend was certainly something we will remember for a long time!

Prizes were awarded across a range of categories, including most fish as a team and individual in both over and under 8m boats, while separate categories for females, kids and most fish tagged meant lots of anglers went home as winners! A big congratulations in particular to the crew of Reality Cheque who released 122 tuna for the weekend, with Brayden Aldridge aboard that boat releasing the most fish as an individual. ‘In 2 The Blue’ took out the under 8m category with 37 fish released, just three ahead of our own team, while our skipper James Manna caught the most fish as an individual in a smaller boat.

In the highly anticipated Calcutta weigh in, Risky Business took out the win with a tuna which weighed in at 19.3kg gilled and gutted and won them a prize of $63,980, which was shared between a syndicate of friends and family. The boat was skippered by Daniel Coleman and was a real family affair, with his two kids, Sloane and Opal, who are only aged six and seven respectively and his brother in law Brandon, making up the crew. What made the win even more remarkable was that they missed the first half of the Saturday while patching up a crack in the hull, which was only discovered on the Friday night. Checkmate came in soecnd with their tuna from late on the Saturday weighing in at 17.4kg, while Dauntless, a crew that had made the long trip down from Darwin, weighing in at 15.7kg to take third.

A massive thankyou to the organisers, Steve Toome and Ash White, and all of the other crews, organisers and everyone who gets involved in the competition. The comraderie all across the weekend was very special and the Port Lincoln locals went out of their way to make everyone feel welcome. It was a pleasure to fish the competition in James Manna’s Stabicraft 2400 Supercab, which is a dream boat of ours, and it was great to experience all that the boat has to offer. While being one of the smaller boats in the fleet, we felt very safe, despite being in some very open ocean a long way from shore for much of the weekend. Thanks to James for having us on his boat and Matt for being a great crew member and organising all of the catering for the weekend!

That’s a healthy prize cheque!

If you want to hear more about what was an epic weekend, jump on our podcast and have a listen to episode 105, which includes Daniel Coleman from Risky Business giving us a full rundown of their Calcutta victory and all the obstacles they had to overcome. Alternatively, jump on the Port Lincoln Tuna Classic Facebook page or website for plenty of photos, videos and information if you want to get involved next year!