Hunting big tuna

[Bill McIntyre]

Well, maybe not so big.

Its a weird world. People have been shooting bluefin, some over 200 pounds, but I've been resisting. Its involves a lot of boat riding and fuel burning and has a low chance of success.But now guys on my boat have taken tuna on my last two trips. We're getting the consistency thing down. Now we need some work on size.

Tuesday we were on the way to an island to shoot yellowtail and spotted some tuna feeding in mid channel. Tanc Sade suited up faster than the other two of us, and shot a small one.

But Friday we got to an island and anchored on a yellowtail spot. Atanas Baitchev shot one at 60 feet, and that concerned me. No way I can shoot them that deep. It ended up with he and Steve G shooting four each, but one school was considerate and came up to 25 feet just for an old fart.

We were gutting fish before we put them on ice, and a 6 to 7 foot hammerhead thought that was just great and started circling the boat.
We never saw the shark while in the water, but when we came back to the boat it would be circling. I guess it knew where to best action was.

Steve and I had about hung it up when we heard Atanas shout "tuna." Damned if a school hadn't come across our yellowtail spot. Its not big but then its a tuna. You have to start somewhere.

Steve had to show off holding up his 4 fish at once. After we got back to the harbor, they made me pose with my fish. You can see from my grimace how heavy it was.

 

[Eyesreach]

Wow good looking fish, I couldn't imagine pulling something like this out of the Pacific northwest. Unfortunately.

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[foxfish]

Fantastic Bill, exciting times for you guys!

 

[Bill McIntyre]

Wow good looking fish, I couldn't imagine pulling something like this out of the Pacific northwest. Unfortunately.

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Wait for global warming to continue.

Until last summer, we couldn't imagine something like this in SoCal either, but the El Nino conditions have brought us these huge bluefin. That one is just a minnow, but fishermen and divers have scored quite a few over 100 and even 200 pounds. It isn't easy though. You spot birds and foaming tuna on the surface in the distance, try to get there before they go down, shut the engine down at least a hundred yards away and then try to swim over to the action before it quits and still have enough breath to dive.

This fish yesterday was just part of a school that swam over the sea mount where we were diving for yellowtail. The photo is deceiving. The tuna weighed just 14 pounds, but he pushed it. All of the yellowtail were a lot bigger, and some were twice as big.

 

[BatRay]

That's amazing. Do you plan to go after the big ones now that you've had a taste of what's out there?

In general, do you think the conditions indicate a wet winter, or something comparable to the last one? I'm still pretty new here, and not sure what the norm is.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

I should never say never, but I doubt I'll be going after the big ones unless a school shows in front of me on the way to an island. Its just too hard and too expansive. For insistence, most of the action has been down around the 43 fathom bank, which is 38 nautical miles West of Point Loma and around 55 nautical miles from Dana Point, where I launch. And while the big ones were near the surface earlier in the summer, I've heard of guys diving to 80 or even 100 feet to shoot them lately. That's out of my league.

And it takes a lot of boat riding in a wet suit just to find fish, and then you need to find your own fish. Its not a matter of just running to the 43 or some other spot where you hear that they've been- then you drive around at high speed looking for fish. I tried it a couple of times and found fish with a fleet of boats competing. As soon as the fish would pop up, boats would race for them and run right over the school, all the while cursing each other and divers in particular on the radio.

But lets say you find fish with no other boats around. You have to cut the engine a hundred yards away and swim to the feeding fish, hoping they don't do down or move. As you swim out, your buddies in the boat are feeding out the multiple floats and bungee line. And when you arrive, you have to have enough breath to dive. The one time I was able to swim out to feeding fish, the visibility was only about 15 feet even though we 30 miles offshore, so there wasn't much hope of seeing them from the surface. The "expert" back at the boat screamed at me to dive, but I was too winded from the hard swim to dive immediately. Then you climb back in the boat and do it all over again repeatedly. I wish this opportunity had come along when I was maybe 60, but at 77 its a chore.

One other thing that bothers me- your have to keep your gun loaded in the boat. There just isn't time to cock a multi-band gun in the water after you jump in. But loaded guns in the boat scare me. Its not so much where the shaft might go- you can control that. But if the gun misfires with the butt against your body, it can do serious damage. I know a guy who had a misfire this year as he loaded the first band, and he ended up in the ER and is out of the water for two months. A few years ago a guy down at Cabo has a 5- band Riffe misfire when the sear broke, and the butt killed him. Sure, misfires are rare, but they happen.

I've heard of some big bluefin- 80 to 100 pounds but not the 200 pounders- at spots pretty close to the front side of Clemente. Maybe one will come by when I've anchored and swam out to the drop-off and already have a loaded gun in my hands. If so, maybe I'll luck out. But I don't think I'll be engaging in there sort of chase that I described above.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

I forgot to reply about the weather. I have no idea. I've read some meteorologists saying that we are likely to have a La Nina, which could mean a dry winter. Of course last year they predicted a wet winter due to El Nino conditions and we had below average rainfall in SoCal. All we got was the warm water killing the kelp beds.

 

[BatRay]

Thanks for the response, Bill. I heard the water got into the 70s a couple of weeks ago. I dipped my toes in the water and it was indeed warm in there. The divers seem to be doing more frequent bottom cleanings.

Thanks, too, for the perspective on hunting the big fish. You only ever see the glamorous photos of people posing with fish. Unless you're specifically out to get a fish like that, it doesn't seem worth the fuss.

 

[JohnJDS]

Great reads. I love hearing about the different logistics of going after different fish.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

A guy shot a 47 pound bluefin
In a coastal kelp bed last week and said there were a couple of 60 pounders in the school. It's a weird year.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

And a friend got this White Sea bass in my boat from the same kelp bed. It would be a day to remember if you could shoot a tuna and a sea bass in the same spot in the same day.