Mark Vanderhoof
Active member
I've been a huge
fan of the mighty Bluefin Tuna since my first experience with them in July of 2007. On that day we landed an amazing 45", 65# fish on a popper. I've been hooked ever since and can remember every encounter with them with detail since that first fish. I've had some success recently with this years mid 60 inch class fish and thought id share my story. It's been tough to keep up with the growth of these fish the last 3 yrs and tough to find the right gear to get it done. But i think we're finally making some progress. In the first week of august, i hooked a huge tuna which hammered a popper 40 feet off the bow in 700 feet of water. The fish came completely out of water giving us THE VIEW of what was probably a 200# fish. We battled the fish for over an hour before he completely wasted us both physically and mentally. Needless to say that we lost the fish but it only made us more addicted. My next and most recent encounter was a month later due to weather and it happened to be Labor Day of this month. We were only able to get out that monday of the 3 day weekend due to weather and here is the run down... Splashed the boat at 0415 with a full moon and clear skies. "They say" you cant catch a tuna on the full moon so i figured we had our work cut out for us. We had a 30 mile run before reaching the area we chose to fish that day. Reached the grounds around 0530 and backed her down to a good cruising speed and started looking for busting fish at the 300' mark. Lots of life out there, seeing many whales(humpback, pilot and right whales) along with a huge Ocean Sunfish. No sharks this time but there are many White sharks and Makos in the area. Spent all morning cruising and scanning for fish and putting some serious mileage in. Nothing on the surface which was a first for me. Worked our way into shallower water which also coincided with a slack tide. Slack tide means Tuna in my experience. Worked through an area that always has massive schools of sand eels that sometimes fills the water column in 130 feet of water. Decided to pay special attention to this area even though there didnt seem to be fish under the birds that were working. Finally found a large swarm of birds working bait but did notice petrals in this flock. Petrals looking down in the water skittering around is almost a guaruntee of tuna down below. There amazing. Ran hard to get to the birds and immediately dropped some 7oz speed jigs. 3 guys jigging hard on our first drop and i hear my buddy say "oooh, fish, no wait something small", then i hear the reel with 18#'s of start drag start screaming!!!! no striper or dogfish can take that drag. i say " thats a @&*$@#%^ TUNA!!!". I reel up as fast as i can while my buddy is telling me to hurry up as the fish has already taken half of the 500yd spool in 30 seconds. I get on the wheel and nearly plane the boat out trying to gain some line. Finally the fish turns back our way and we get some line. All hell has broken loose in the boat now trying to fight the fish. I get my buddy in the bow and put on a harness and belt on him. This was the first fish with our new harness and man did it make a difference. My buddy whipped this fish in about 15 minutes which just amazed us every other fish we battled was over an hour, landed or not. Got the fish to the side of the boat and got two gaffs and a tail rope on him. Now the fun part, getting him in the boat! Tried to pull him over the gunnel with 3 of us, negative. After about a half hour, we got him around to the stern and pulled him up on the stern deck and through the door. We WON! time for high fives and to settle down after the adrenaline rush. Can't even put into words the satisfaction of landing such an amazing fish. After losing many fish in the past ive settled on being happy with just hooking up so landing one this size is a real accomplishment. This fish measured 66" in length with a 44" girth. Estimated weight is 160#'s. Fish was landed on a Shimano Trevala 5'8" 80-200 rod, Fin Nor Offshore OS85 spinning reel with 80# PowerPro, 100# Jinkai leader and 7oz Williamson Benthos speed jig. Ended up doing 12hrs on the water, 109 nautical miles and about 55 gallons of gas. To wind down, we hit the striper rips on the way back and tripled up on some huge stripers on the first drift. The addiction continues....
