South Australian Angler – June 2018

NOTHING

ESCAPES!

DEFINING FISHING HOOKS SINCE 1877

SALTISM

4X TREBLE HOOKS

LIGHT WEIGHT, DURASTEEL COATED FOR UP TO 600 HOURS OF

USE IN SALTWATER, FORGED FOR EXTRA STRENGTH AND WITH

AN INLINE EYE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR USE ON LURES

immediately by sticking them each side

with a sharp knife where the pectoral fin

folds down near the lateral line. We then

place them in a large bucket of water

to bleed out for a few minutes and then

straight on ice.

I have a large 110 litre esky that

tucks up nicely inside the cabin of my

Surtees Gamefisher 6.1 and this will

hold six tuna and several bags of ice.

Once on ice, the fish should never get

over five degrees, otherwise they will

spoil. Even when filleting the fish at

home, try to do it in the shade, fillet

only one at a time, then get the flesh

back on ice as soon as possible.

We often find ourselves trimming

the leftover meat off the skeleton,

then dipping it in fresh soy sauce and

eating the sashimi as we continue to

fillet the other fish. With a couple of

cold beers, tuna simply doesn’t get any

better than that! I usually freeze the

blood meat section of the fillet to be

used later on for shark bait, and the

tuna frames are buried deep in my

vegetable garden as fertiliser.

As for cooking the tuna, we normally

cut the fillet into steaks around 40mm

thick before marinating in olive oil, salt

and pepper and lemon juice for a few

minutes. I then fire up the barbie and

slap them on the plate. I like to cook a

third of the way through, then turn over

to cook the other side, leaving steaks

slightly pink in the middle. They are

simply awesome!

No wonder why I can’t wait until

next season, when the Victor Harbor

blues again invade the pristine blue

waters just offshore.

Trolling still accounts for

most of the tuna caught

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(^30) rleg http://www.saangler.com.au