There is nothing like the tail beat of a tuna. The thump of their tail resonates up the line and can be seen in the tip of an anglers bent rod. A small fish goes thump..thump..thump.. A larger fish goes thump....thump.... thump.... The bigger the fish the slower the thump. Large or small there is not much doubt that it is a tuna.
Fishing buddies Ralph and Lyle came for a visit this week and fished on Jen Wren III. Their request was to catch some tuna. One of my neighbors had done pretty well the day before on the 88 spot so we made the 33 mile run out there. Shortly after arrival we could see huge tuna crashing and feeding. Getting them to go was a different story. After more than an hour Ralph finally hung what I know was a monster. The fish ripped off more than a hundred yards of 100 pound test line from Ralph's reel in a short moment and never stopped before coming unbuttoned. It was sickening to watch the line go slack. He had the right fish on the right gear but I guess it just wasn't the right time.
We gave the spot about another hour without a bite and decided to move on. A school of bottle nosed dolphin had been spotted about 10 miles from us and the boats there were getting a few nice tuna. Shortly after running to the dolphin Ralph got hooked up and by the end of the day both anglers had bagged a 100 pound class tuna
Ralph putting on the heat! Look at the bend in that Calstar 6460XXH. The reel is an Accurate ATD50 loaded with 130lb spectra and a 100lb mono top shot. It is definitly the perfect elephent gun for big tuna.
I was really bothered that the big tuna we had hooked on the 88 spot came unbuttoned. Yesterday I had a day off and decided to go back out there and look around. Fishing with a bullet tuna for bait it didn't take long and I was on.
The yellowfin tuna taped out at 190 lbs.
Now I'm taking today off to recuperate from my day off yesterday.
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