Some seasons you chase the fish for days. Off Portland in Victoria's south-west this year, the southern bluefin came to the boat. The 2026 run has switched on hard, and the fish doing the damage are barrels — the heavy-shouldered tuna that bend rods to the cork.
In footage from the Fishing Adventures channel, a small-boat crew set out to get their mate Mark his first-ever barrel and instead found mayhem: bait balls boiling on the surface, gannets diving, dolphins and a whale all feeding on the same school. "Look at the big tuna busting up there. How can we not get in here?" the skipper called as fish smashed bait on every side of the boat.
The hookups came thick. With Joey driving the rod and the skipper working the boat to stay on top of the fish, the crew loaded up almost the instant lures reached the bait. "It's only just started, boys," the skipper said. "We're going to get three or four today, hopefully." Several fish matched the 60-kilogram models taken the day before, and the crew argued over whether one bruiser went 95 or a clean 100. At the peak the spreader bar fired and two then three rods buckled together.
The payoff was a deck of bled-down tuna and a front-row seat to whales, dolphins and seals carving up the bait. "What a tuna season it's been in Portland this year, 2026," the skipper said as the wind built and the crew called it a day — four mates, one small boat, and about as good as the southern bluefin grounds get.
