Behemoth Bluefin Tuna Battle Goes Viral

Fish are usually measured in inches, and fish fights are measured in minutes, but for some anglers, battling a behemoth bluefin tuna measured in yards for hours is a blessing or a curse.

As Troy Lancaster and his friends left Fisherman’s Wharf at noon on a Monday, they headed offshore to search for swordfish 70 miles offshore on the 64-foot sportfisher “Quantified.” To find live bait, Capt. Justin Drummond motored 150 miles offshore to an oil rig 150 miles offshore. When the tubes were full, they switched to the big guns as soon as they arrived at the boat before dawn.

Their live skipjack tuna was immediately struck, but the attacker did not stick to the 19/0 circle hook.

We caught a 400- to 500-pound blue marlin after 15 minutes, but we broke him off,” Lancaster mentioned in an interview. “He came out perfectly, about 10 feet above the water.”

After another missed strike suspected to be marlin, the rod came tight on something very large at 9:20 a.m.

“She almost spooled us. Not completely, but she nearly did,” Lancaster said. “She was in complete control the first three or four hours. Anything she wanted, she got.”

Several bet on yellowfin, but found they don’t get that big. Some bet on blue marlin, but it wasn’t on the surface and jumped.

Despite our suspicions, it never showed up.

Whenever blue marlin come up to the surface to run, Lancaster said, you can back down on them and chase them, which gives you a great advantage. When the fish is straight up and down, you cannot back the boat or do anything. You’re completely powerless. The only thing you can do is pull back and gain some line.

Lancaster hauled back and reeled down for hours on end, only to lose line repeatedly. The fish dragged the boat for 8 miles. Eventually, the line broke. The weight never diminished, but there were no headshakes or runs.

The anglers correctly assumed that the fish wrapped the line with its tail, got stuck backward, and died as a result. To breathe, tuna must have water flowing over their gills and through their mouths. If they stop moving, they will die. As opposed to many other fish, tuna do not fan their gills.

In order to gain any line, we pulled very slowly for two hours just to lift the fish into the water column, then backed down really hard to pull out the scope.

A behemoth bluefin tuna emerged from the depths nine hours later, at 6:30 p.m.

“So, it wasn’t a big dramatic battle at the transom, except for the fact that we had seven guys on the boat—one of them that wasn’t worth a shit, and that was me to try and get the fish into the boat. We wound up spending almost an hour and a half trying to get the fish in the boat. But we finally got it in and had a huge celebration, great times for everybody.”

It is 121 inches long and 84 inches wide, measuring 10 feet long by 7 feet around. Instead of staying through the night and for another day, they decided to weigh, process, and freeze the potential record fish as soon as possible. Fishing officials at Fisherman’s Wharf weighed the fish at 876 pounds, beating the old Texas state record of 876 pounds by 68 pounds. Last year, anglers also caught a bluefin that weighed 840 pounds, but it wasn’t accepted as a new record.

Samples of organs and meat were collected by biologists from Texas A&M’s Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies.

It pleased Lancaster that the fish had already spawned, which was a female. “If we had caught her three months ago in the Atlantic, she would have weighed almost 1,200 pounds. Once they get into the Gulf and spawn, they lose a lot of weight. They also reduce their food intake.”

Even if the fish had not died on the line, Lancaster said they probably would have kept it anyway, since NOAA Fisheries allows a recreational quota of 2,500 pounds for bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico. The short season is not meant to allow anglers to target bluefin tunas intentionally, but they may catch ones greater than 73 inches per vessel. The bluefin migrate from their Gulf spawning grounds up the East Coast to the waters off Nova Scotia in the spring.

With its massive size, population decline, and high auction price, the Atlantic bluefin is an obvious focal point in discussions about overfishing.

In the 1970s and ’80s, Atlantic bluefin stocks dropped drastically by nearly 80%. In response to this, NOAA partnered with the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas to devise one of the most comprehensive fisheries management strategies worldwide. To address this issue, they enforced seasonal closures and tight retention limits as well as pioneering approaches like the Individual Bluefin Tuna Quota Program to incentivize commercial fishers to reduce bluefin bycatch. Moreover, they imposed restrictions on long-line gear in the Gulf of Mexico that diminished bluefin bycatch by 70%.

From 2004 to 2017, the Western Atlantic Bluefin Harvest quota was increased every year, resulting in an increase in bluefin stocks. In 2019, NOAA announced that U.S.-caught Atlantic bluefin tuna is a sustainable food choice as the total biomass of bluefin has increased by 60% since its lowest point.

Since 2017, Atlantic bluefin stocks have decreased by nearly 30%, according to a recent study. As a result of increased quotas and relaxed regulations over the past three years, stock numbers are now dipping again. Although the bluefin fishery is no longer completely unsustainable, its status remains uncertain.

Lancaster began fishing bluewater 35 years ago. They have enjoyed the highly regarded meat in a variety of ways, but their favorite preparation is sashimi. He and his wife Toni travel the world in pursuit of pelagic fish, but this was his first bluefin tuna.

My favorite is raw tuna on a salt block with a little hot sauce or wasabi on top.”

Lancaster and the Quantified crew have also received praise and notoriety for their record catch.

“We’re a fishing village here in Port Aransas. My [10-year-old] daughter, as soon as she got to school, she was instantly famous with all the kids because they were also excited about it,” he said. “I was getting calls from a lot of my fishing buddies from all over the place, ‘Hey you made the news or hey, you’re famous and they’d have to send us links because we don’t have Instagram or Facebook or any of that stuff.”

 

Sources: Poleandbait, The Meateater