Catch of the Day (April 25): Young Tathra spearfisherman Jared Higgs has been at it again spearing some giant kingfish.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Jared and his mate Nathan, both 17, earlier in the week went diving going after the big kings in one of their regular spots at an undisclosed location, only saying it was south of Tathra.
Spearfishers in the area regularly encounter and spear very large kingfish, fish that for some reason are rarely caught by line on the South Coast.
There were boats fishing in the area when the lads dived but they were not seen to catch any fish.
Just in the last week the size of kingfish at Montague Island, Narooma has picked up with an occasional fish just over 1m, but nothing like the fish the boys speared this week and have regularly brought home over the decades.
Jared said the bigger fish were 15-16kg and the smaller ones were 12-13kg.
They also spotted several bronze whaler sharks swimming in the area on the dive.
This is not the first time we’ve reported on Jared as back in January 2012 he was one of several youngsters to jump off the Tathra Wharf and swim with a whale shark, estimated to be between 8 and 10-metres long.
Jared said he was fishing when the whale shark cruised within 1 metre of the wharf and he soon identified it as a whale shark.
He and his two mates then jumped in and swam with the shark until it moved out into the bay off Tathra Beach, an experience he described as amazing even without goggles.
“He was just cruising along and we swam beside him until he started to dive a little deeper when other people starting jumping off the wharf,” he said.
At time we also reported that there had been a fair bit of heavy-gear fishing going on at the wharf, despite the local council ordinances banning shark fishing.
Several bronze whalers and hammerheads had been caught on whole fish baits, brought up onto the wharf and dispatched, much to the amazement and occasional distress from onlookers.
Not much else to report this ANZAC Day, other than that the Narooma boys on the Abrolhos Islands, WA continue to get some good fish, including plumber extraordinaire Unto Holopainen who got double header of bald chin groper.
Apparently the local islanders only want these baldies and also dhufish, throwing anything else including snapper straight back!
