85" tuna lost after 4 hours..on spinning gear
Capt. Rich Antonino
July 30, 2009
Stellwagen Bank - Saltwater Fishing Report
How do I put this? It was a slob. Jeff Weber(buckmanJr) mated for me today and did great; I'm thankful to have another set of knowledgeable hands for this trip. Perfect casting conditions and sporadic jumping fish....Craig had a fish slam his yellow/red/clear tunaCandy 20' from the boat... Big fish, close to 73". He soiled himself! Next cast, same thing. Another miss.....Long story short...an hour later he hooked up and it never stopped. Well, it did, but stayed vertical for two hours! We couldn't budge it. We got it to the boat in 90 minutes, but not close enough to stab it. Our estimate, and it was 10' from the boat, was 85", 350+ pounds. An absolute slob of a fish. At one time, it swam straight down at warp speed and slammed the bottom, knocking itself out for a little bit. I didn't know what happened, but this is the best I can figure. We thought something bit it's tail off---it was dead weight while we reeled it up 100' or so, then it came back to. Incredible.
After three hours, my customer finally passed the rod and we were no better at getting it to the boat. In desperation, we almost hooked up a 50-wide with a few tuna hooks and a weight to slide down the line. I didn't want to "quit", thinking it was a bad idea and would snap the braid or leader connection. When it finally snapped the line, after 3 1/2+ hours, I was sick. Incredible fish and what a battle.
We tried backing away from the fish to "tease" it to the surface, but that didn't work. It was just a slob. We saw lots of smaller fish, but got nailed by the big guys! Kudos to the OTI Popping rod, which was rated to 60-80 pounds and the Okuma VS80 reel, whose drag handled 20 pounds all day. I was impressed in the length of the battle. See you out there!
Rich Antonino
Stellwagen Bank Fishing Forecast:
Tuna. Tuna. Tuna.
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