In March of 2023 Trevor Parham and his son Ollie invited me to go tuna fishing out from Cape Jervis.
This was something I’d always wanted to do with my boat, but the issues of parking at the Victor Harbour ramp and the drive to Victor on poor roads always put me off. Ollie had been having some recent success, so it was too good an opportunity to miss.
We arrived just on dawn at Cape Jervis. Winds were light to start with, but freshening later, and already there were a dozen trailers in the carpark. We launched Trevor’s boat, a 5m Classic Craft, and headed out towards Kangaroo Island. We had only travelled two kilometres when we could plainly see a school of tuna busting up in front of us. Then we could observe still more schools of tuna, all feeding on baitfish. Ollie is not so keen on catching tuna by trolling. He prefers to stop the motor and let the boat drift in towards the school while casting metal lures, which is certainly an exciting way to catch them.