The latest edition to the already great number of species to be caught on the “BONITO” is the illusive Blue fin Tuna.

After two seasons of experimenting and a total of 14 days of dedicated Tuna Hunting the first Blue Fin Tuna was caught on the 14th of October 2003 by Brian Stapleton from Dublin. The Tuna weighed a whopping 206kg’s!! Earlier that day a much bigger fish was lost, it broke 200lbs monofilament………..

Later that season our own skipper Alastair McIlwaine and “relief” skipper Sylvester Hiemstra decided to team up with famous Tuna Skipper Adrian Molloy and managed to catch a Blue Fin each with an estimated weight of 500lb for Alastair’s fish and 600+lb for Sylvester.

Blue Fin Tuna is caught by trolling Spreader Bars behind the boat at a speed of app. 3-4 knots. 130lb Pen International rods and reels are part of our new professional set-up as well as newly fitted heavy duty Outriggers and a Fighting Chair.

The Blue Fin Tuna is the ultimate Big Game Fish, the true Steam Train of the Atlantic. Once you get strapped in to that chair, knowing that you are connected to a Blue Fin Tuna that could weigh anywhere between 300 and 1000+ lb, the real fun starts…

2004

The first Blue Fin for 2004 was caught on the 15th of September by a group of five from Cork. Congratulations to Tina, Tony, John, Ruud and Larry on their joint effort to catch this 660 LB fish. Contact us for more information on the Ultimate Angling Experience.

Unfortunately we haven't been able to get out for more TUNA as we were flat out with general fishing, or if we did have a spare day the weather was just to bad. Adrian Molloy, who else, has caught several more fish in the mean time. Michael McVeigh also managed to catch and release two Blue Fins, congrats to Michael !!

We hope to get a few more days fishing done in October as we are dying to put our new fighting chair and outriggers through the test.

Saturday the 9th of October we got a chance to test our new set-up. We hooked up at about 1600 hours, a blind strike. Unfortunately the fish won this time and broke of. There were plenty more fish around and Adrian managed to get a double hook-up just 100 yards in front of us, awesome sight!! Both fish were tagged and released.

Sunday the 10th of October. There were plenty fish about but they did not show any interest in our Lures. No fish were caught at all.

Tuesday the 12th of October. As Adrian had some minor set back with his electronics we entertained his guest for the day on the BONITO. We fished the same area with two other boats. Several fish were seen but no kook-up. One other boat lost a stinger.

Wednesday the 13th. Still entertaining Adrian's guests. A fish was hooked within a couple of minutes trolling, fish was played for about half an hour but managed to "spit the hook" right beside the boat, pitty ...... boat is still fishing as it is only 2 o'clock ..... no more fish seen at the surface, no other boats caught fish.

Thursday the 14th of October. Weather is keeping us from the Tuna grounds today and tomorrow's weather not to promising looking.

Friday 15th of October. Although some fish were seen in the area no boats managed to hook up.

Sat. & Sun. 16th and 17th of October. We had to turn back twice because of the weather, very big seas and a lot of wind, again. No boats out.