The Fish of a Lifetime: My Quest for a Giant Bluefin Tuna

To start this tale I have to set the scene for all of you who aren’t familiar with the world that is Southern California sport fishing. In the summer months as the water warms we get an influx of pelagic game fish. Dorado, Yellowfin Tuna, and Yellowtail often come in large numbers. A few striped marlin also make an appearance, as well as a some blue marlin on occasion. Every year is different though, and lately we’ve had some strange things happening. A couple summers ago we had a bunch of Wahoo show up in our local waters which is completely unheard of. While it isn’t super weird for some bluefin tuna to show up a few years ago we got a huge influx of them, and some of them were big. They never really left and have just been getting bigger and bigger every year. Apparently the last time we had these giant bluefin tuna in our waters was during the 1920’s. (Of note is that these are Pacific Bluefin Tuna which are a close relative to the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna. While Atlantic Bluefin reach 450 kilograms with some regularity that is not the case for there Pacific cousins.)

So last year I was really just learning how to fish for these fish. One day I got lucky and hooked a nice one. It kicked my butt, but after 45 minutes I got it to the boat. Unfortunately a hammerhead shark took notice and wanted a free meal so we decided to share it. When I landed that fish I was elated, and the two guys I was fishing with were quite jealous. They both had a lot more experience than I did and had never caught a bluefin as big as this one. I’ll never know what it would have weighed whole but by showing the photo to other fishermen who would know better than I we think it would have been right around 30 kilograms.

In December of 2016 these fish disappeared and no one knew if or when they’d be back. Then in March someone found them. One of the best and most famous charter captains out of San Diego named Duane Diego caught the first few of the year and they were ~50 kgs. So the excitement began again. I really wanted to get one over 100 lbs and that was my goal for the year. I went on my first trip in early May but had no luck. I tried again throughout the summer but never could make it happen. I hooked one in June but had some gear problems and lost it. Bluefin are notoriously line shy and very hard to hook. There are times when they’ll be exploding on the chum you throw out but won’t touch a bait with a hook in it. The charter captains don’t always like to target them for that reason, why go chase giants only to have the whole boat get skunked when you can go fish for yellowfin or another fish and have everyone at least get something to take home. But I kept trying and trying to no avail. As the summer came and went I was watching my opportunity dwindle before me.

In October I was perusing the local fishing forums (www.bdoutdoors.com) and saw a trip being advertised. It was a 3.5 day trip on a boat called the Pacific Voyager. The boat and captain have a very good reputation and I’ve always wanted to fish it so I signed up fully aware that we may not even target tuna at all, but remained hopeful that we would. This trip is normally a Mexican coast rockfish and yellowtail trip but normally there aren’t any tuna around in November. Lately though the bluefin had been sticking around and last year they fished the outer banks for bluefin and yellowtail so I was hopeful we would go in that direction again. When you book these trips in advance they are always dependant on the weather, and while the forecast wasn’t amazing heading into the week of the trip it looked fishable. I got confirmation the trip was on and started getting my gear ready.

The morning of the trip I show up and sign in with the charter master. He says the plan is still to head down into Mexico and fish rockfish! My heart dropped, but I went in knowing that’s a possibility and stayed positive. We begin paying for the documents we needed to fish the Mexican coast. I’m on the back deck meeting some of the guys when I hear the captain Mark say “You want to go tuna fishing? How about you? Tuna? Tuna?.” He asked everyone and almost everyone said yes! He said okay let me make some calls and see how it looks. He talked to the other captains in the fleet and confirmed how good the fishing had been lately.

He said let's get out of here we could even be fishing by this evening and everyone’s spirits lifted! We rigged up, filled up on bait, and were on our way. I met more of the guys, had a sandwich, and went down to my bunk for a quick nap. At 2:30 PM I come up and almost immediately the boat makes a sharp left turn and picks up the pace. He tells us they see some dolphin with birds all over them and it looks really good. Often tuna are found with dolphin pods as they feed on the same baitfish.

We put out the troll jigs and head that way. We stop twice on sonar schools and throw some chum but they wouldn’t respond. It was weird because there was dolphin and birds everywhere and scattered fish on the meter but we didn’t even get a single hookup! Oh well. Mark comes back on the loud speaker and says we’re gonna head to the big bluefin zone because another boat was there today and the big fish were biting. It was an epic sunset as we headed for the 60 mile bank - a underwater mountain that goes from over 1000 feet deep on the sides to just 300 feet on top of it. We anchored on the top and I hear Mark tell the night captain Ryan that he’ll be up at 5 am and we’ll start looking around. I stayed up a bit later than I normally would drinking a few beers and hanging out with the crew. I went to bed with dreams of giant tuna swimming around in my head and set the buzzer for 5 AM.

I wake at 5 am and notice the boat isn’t running and we’re still sitting on the anchor. Hmm, Capt. must be having his coffee I figure. I decide to squeeze in another few minutes. At 5:30 my bunkmates alarm starts going off and won’t stop. My irrational half asleep brain starts getting angry at him for not turning it off when I finally look down there and he’s not in bed. My other roommate is gone too... what the? Then I hear Mark saying something over the loudspeaker. I run up to the deck still in my pajamas and see a bunch of guys fishing already! At least one angler is hooked up and fighting a fish. I’m normally up way too early on these fishing trips but I didn’t think we’d be fishing from the anchor and couldn’t believe I’d missed a little fishing time already.

I grab my heaviest rod and reel with a big glow in the dark jig and start dropping it. A few drops for nothing when I hear Jon C. hook up and yell SINKER RIG!!!. I set my jig down and grab another set up and drop a bait down with 5 ounces on it. Within a minute I feel tug tug, throw it in gear and feel my rod load up. “FRESH ONEEEE!!!!” I yell when everything goes limp...? I reel in and see this fish just bit through/cut my 80 pound fluorocarbon leader like it was nothing. Damn. Now the sun’s coming up and the fish are starting to blow up around the boat. I grab my third rod and reel, hook a big sardine, and launch it out there. Almost immediately line starts racing off my reel. I throw it in gear and line the fish starts taking drag like a tractor. Right about now some of the other hooked fish start coming over the rail and I get to see the size of these things. Three gaffers all across the board. There were no small ones.

There’s no doubt I was undergunned. The fish was fighting pretty funny and one of the deckhands, Dom, shares my suspicion it may be tail wrapped. To add to everything else, the low gear wasn't working on my reel! The fish takes me up to the bow where the other deckhand, Kazi, is sitting on the anchor playing rodeo with our rods as fish go over and under the anchor line. (Much respect to Kazi and Dom for this, they certainly saved a lot of fish that woulda been lost this trip). Kazi looks at my reel, taps it with his pliers, holds the lever and clicks it into low gear and it stays! Finally I start gaining on this fish. I hooked this fish at 6 AM and two hours later around 8 AM it’s at color right by the anchor. Dom grabs my rod and passes it under the anchor as the fish is on the surface! He hands me the rod, turns around to grab the gaff, and the fish turns and shoots under the boat. I’m too slow to lean over and POP, it’s gone. Broke at my spectra to fluoro knot. A loud expletive came from Dom’s mouth and he apologized to me saying he shoulda kept the rod one second longer and made sure the fish did not turn.

Now I have to get my head back on straight. I cut my jig off and put some 80 pound fluorocarbon leader on my best rod and reel. The chef, Rob, comes up and tells me he made me a burrito for whenever I’m ready and the crew starts putting out the kite with a double trouble rig. I’m too defeated to eat while these fish are biting so I get back in the water. I’m on the stern fishing next to the kite when the indicator goes down and they scream “CHOMPER ON THE KITE!!!” Almost simultaneously I see a monster tuna back porpoise along the surface right around where my bait should be and ZIPPPPPP line is going off. I post up in the corner and the kite angler, Jon Lam, follows his fish up to the bow.

Twenty minutes later or so Jon L. comes running down the side of the boat following his fish. There are three anglers fishing between me and him when our fish start to wrap. Mark is right there in the corner with us but it all happens too fast and Jon reels in a cut off line.

Bummer, but I’m still hooked up and set on landing this fish. It takes me up to the bow and around the anchor when I’m able to set it on the rail in low gear and get this beast to the surface. Kazi and Dom stick a couple gaffs in it and we walk down the rail to where they were pulling them on board. I’m exhausted but a wave of relief is coming over me when I see my hook hanging in the air about 6 feet above the fish. At first I think I must of pulled the hook as they gaffed it but a closer looks proves me wrong. My hook was simply hooked on one of the double trouble hooks while the other was in the fish’s mouth. The crew laugh and tell Jon they found his fish. We’re all stunned, but Jon confirms I haven’t landed a fish yet and tells me it’s all mine. Very gracious of him in what could have been a weird situation.

I’m still not sure what happened. Did I never have my own fish on and was just on his line the whole time? Seems unlikely as we spent time on opposite sides of the boat. Did we hook the same fish at the start but I just pulled the hook and it slid up the leader to the other hook? Or did I have my own fish on at the start, pull the hook when our fish got wrapped, yet somehow hook his other hook? I guess we’ll never know. I didn’t get a photo of that fish, but it looked like one of these:

Now I feel a little cheated. I mean it’s really sweet I managed to land that fish, but I still did not feel like it was truly my fish. I’ve been after one of these fish a long time and didn’t feel like I quite accomplished my goal. The hunger was still there. So, I kept fishing.

We had a mix of normal sardines and some huge 8” horse sardines as well. I think almost all of the fish were coming on the big sardines. Not sure if it was because these giant fish want big baits or because the big baits were the only thing that could pull 80 pound through the water, but either way it was important to use the large ones. I grab a large yet admittedly ugly large dine, butt-hook it, and send it off the side. I’m bit almost instantly right by the boat and this fish barely takes line off the reel on its first run. I gain on it right away and it’s obvious this isn’t one of the giants. Three minutes later a gaff is sank into it and a 25lb ish YFT comes over the rail! I didn’t get a photo of this fish either, but it looked something like this.

I’m pretty sure I had one more bite sometime that day for a pulled hook. Some guys already had an epic day though. Jon C landed 3, and I’m pretty sure Ed and Ying had 4 each. Albert hooked one on 50 lb test on his Shimano Torium, fought it for over 4 hours, and lost it on the anchor at color. I remember seeing Ying shower in the afternoon and tell me he was done fishing “I don’t want to kill anymore.” The boat ended with over 30 that day for the 17 of us. It was interesting to note that around 3 PM that day the fish seemed to bug out. From 4am until then they were consistently cruising under the boat but as the sun began to set they moved off the bank somewhere. I was in bed at 7pm that night and was certainly not going to miss the early bite the next day. I set my alarm for 2:30 AM so I could shower when there was no line and be ready early.

Then next morning I’m up, showered, caffeinated, and dropping my flat fall by 3:45 AM. Nothing for a few drops so I leave it in the light to charge and head inside for another cup of joe. Right on cue around 4:00 AM the second captain, Block, comes down and tells us he’s starting to mark them under the boat if we want to drop a jig on them. I get up with no hesitation, grab my stick, and start dropping again. On the third drop I feel something funny happen, throw it in gear, and line starts peeling. I look around and see I am the only angler on the deck and I’m hooked on a giant fish on the right gear - it was truly a surreal moment. After a few minutes the fish takes me across the back of the boat and as it does so I look into the galley and catch Robert’s eye. I just nod to confirm I’m on and he and Steve come out and watch me for a minute. I put the fish on the rail and start doing work.

Steve grabs a jig and is bit first drop. Robert says something to Steve and is bit his second drop. Ryan comes out and laughs, “The only three guys fishing are hooked up and still people aren’t fishing.” These fish just put such a beating on us the first day people weren’t eager to jump head on into an hour long+ battle. Quickly me and Steve are in the corner together when Steve gets his fish to color! Unfortunately he pulled the hook at the boat and his fish escaped. Apparently his fish told my fish what was up on his way to freedom and my fish followed suit about 40 feet under the boat. I am pissed I lost another one and after a few expletives Ryan tells me get it back down there. Robert also had a frustrating first day going 1 for 5 I believe but his luck was beginning to change and he boated his fish.

Now a few other anglers are fishing but the bite isn’t as wide open as it was at 4 am. Jon Lam hooks one on the flat fall and Ying hooks up on a sinker rig. I switch to bait but still can’t get bit again. Robert takes a minute off, drops his jig back down there, and is hit again on his first drop. It seemed like these fish came to the boat a lot quicker in the dark and soon he has his second on the boat!

By now the sun is coming up and we start flylining. The bite is definitely a little bit slower than the day before and there is a good bit more boat traffic on the bank. I’m getting frustrated at this point and let it cloud my judgement as I set down my proper set up and grab the 60 pound rod and reel again. I put out another big sardine and am bitching how I just can’t get a bite today when I feel a tap and the line starts racing! When I throw it in gear it starts coming to the boat really easy. I mention that I think this may be one of the small yellowfin again when it wakes up and takes 200 yards of my reel like it is nothing. Okay, definitely not a yellowfin. Jon C is watching the way this fish is fighting and tells me he thinks this is a GIANT! This fish put quite a beating on me. Around the boat a number of times and two and a half hours later I have it up and down and almost all the line back on my reel. The fish must have been just below deep color when I feel it all go slack. NOT. AGAIN. I reel in my hook intact - another pulled hook. That’s what I get for hooking it on the wrong gear. I am pretty frustrated at this point but go inside to eat and settle down.

Now while the bite was slower the second day it was still fairly easy to get a bite if you could get a big perfect bait away from the boat. I try one after lunch but it wasn’t really swimming. I reel in and grab the most perfect giant sardine I can find. Get it about 50 yards from the boat and what do you know, I’m on again second bait after lunch! This one is on the best gear I have - a Shimano Talica with 80 pound leader. It takes me up to the bow and as I pass David he says I see deep color. “Really?” I ask in disbelief. It’s only been about 20 minutes. I was so beat from the earlier battles I decided to just button it down and get this fish in, and it was working. A few minutes later and Kazi gets a gaff in it! I’m elated. It’s been months and so many heartbreaks and I finally got my local giant. Mark taped it out for me and it went 61.5 inches long by 43 inches around for 142 pounds or 64 kilograms.

Ed and Ying were obviously two of the best anglers on the boat. They fish long range every year and have a lot of experience doing this anchor fishing for big tuna. They spent a lot of the second day hooking and handing fish to other anglers that couldn’t get bit. At one point Ed gets bit using an Accurate Dauntless and the fish just goes and goes and goes. He put drag to full but it made no difference, Ed was spooled for the first time in his life.

There were points during the second day when only 3 or 4 anglers were fishing. I’ve never seen a group of anglers more wrecked and satisfied at the same time. I got bit again later in the day but was chewed off after a few minutes. Honestly at that point I didn’t really care. I had 2 giant tuna in the well and that was enough for me.

We also had almost no room left in the boat for fish now. They filleted a lot of them after the first day to make more room and we filled it up. We had 57 of these fish by the time the dust settled and everyone felt that was enough. Believe it or not we group decides to head to San Clemente Island that night for a final day of island fishing before heading home. Honestly I still really want to catch one on a jig and would have loved one more morning shot at it, but I wasn’t gonna argue with the group. I was asleep by 8 that night and slept right till 6 am.

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise in the cove but conditions were crap so Mark said we’ll go get some rockfish before the wind comes up. To keep everything short it was simply the best rockfishing I have ever seen. Constant doubles, and almost all vermillion rockfish, the most sought after and delicious rockfish. Mark even hopped down and fished with us and it was awesome seeing how stoked he got catching these rockfish right next to us. Apparently he fished commercial cod for years and it showed, the guy knows how to slay rockfish.

Overall it was simply an amazing trip. Talking to Ed and Ying about the trip they said it was simply the most phenomenal long range style fishing they had ever seen and it was in our backyard. It’s likely I’ll never see fishing like this again in my lifetime, and am very grateful I was able to witness and be a part of it.

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Follow me on instagram @erniegorham

1. All images of me were taken by my friend Robert S. and posted with his permission.

2. I originally wrote this piece with the intended audience being southern Californian fisherman. I edited it and reworded parts so it would make more sense to people not familiar with the specifics of our industry. However if you don't fully understand any of the things I mentioned or have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!

#FISHINGISLIFE