Bluefin tuna in the Adriatic Sea: Day 1

After a really bad trip (fishing wise) to Madagascar in January 2017, we were in need of a trip with more fish. We had heard about the tuna fishing in the Adriatic Sea. I contacted Michele Meggiolaro for more information. He advised us to contact Maretta Club ASD in Porto San Giorgio which is run by Alessio and Boris.

We, Jacob Rønnow, Nikolaj Bielecki and I, set up three days of fishing that went like this:

Day 0, September 2017, travelling day

We took a plane from Copenhagen to Rome where we hired a car and drove 2,5 hours to the town, Porto San Giorgio, on the Italian east coast where we were supposed to fish. We arrived at the hotel at around 9 pm and to set up our rods. 

Day 1, September 21st 2017:

After a good nights sleep and a nice breakfast on the hotel, we grabbed our rods and gear and walked to the harbour - a trip of around 5 minutes.

Alessio was ready in the boat: An inflatable Focchi boat, 7 m 30 cm and 250 HP engine. We should find out later that this was a real war machine!

We went to the tuna grounds in around 30 minutes which was 20 NM from shore. After one hour of searching, we saw the first bust up. Every one was excited - even the boat! Alessio turned up the engine and we were slowly reaching 57 knots. With a bit of old swell from the day before, this was not a pleasant ride - but who cares! The tunas looked really agressive turning the water white. We casted all three of us and we all had a strike, unfortunately Jacobs and my fish did not connect to the hooks properly. As the line got slack, I twitched two times  with my homemade sinking stickbait and I was tight again - double hookup with Nikolaj!

Double hook up on the first cast

It was a bit of a mess fighting two tunas this way but soon, Nikolaj had his fish on the surface. 

And not long after, my fish surfaced and was boated for a quick pic.

What a start! First bust up - first cast and BOOM! After this, we thought it was going to be easy. But tunas can be finicky and 2 hours of casting to busting tuna went past before Nikolaj got tight again.

An hour later, it was my turn. I wanted to catch a tuna on the other of my two homemade stickbaits - a pink/purple/silvery one. We came to a frenzy and Jacob had a strike but no hooks would penetrate. I had a strike as soon as the lure hit the water.

We were in the harbour at around 5 pm. Went for a shower in the hotel room and walked to a restaurant nearby. We had a really great meal there trying to gain some power for tomorrow.