Once in a while, maybe half a dozen times in your whole life,
you catch a fish you won't forget. If any fish can fill that category, a
blue fin tuna can.
I've never landed a blue fin. I've never even been out on a tuna boat.
And though I've caught bonito and false albacore and yellow fin before,
until the summer of '98, I'd never even hooked a blue fin tuna.
That summer I hooked two.
They said, down at Cape Fisherman's Supply in Chatham, that everyone caught
tuna in the summer of '98, that fished for them. I don't doubt that. There
were more blue fin, closer and more visible than I could remember in thirty
five years of fishing the Cape.
Seeing them chasing mackerel out of the water and clearing the waves by
five feet was not an uncommon sight. Four and five foot tuna, weighing upwards
of two hundred pounds or more, shot out of the water time and again showing
off their speed and power. They fed like this as close as three miles off
Nauset beach all during August and September. I even found them feeding
and jumping a half mile off the breakers on some days and occasionally within
thirty feet of my boat.
On the two occasions when I had charter client's on board and fish broke
closely enough to put on a spectacular show, they were shocked to see such
big fish so close to the boat. Seeing those tuna was so far beyond their
expectations or fantasies that it was hard for them to believe what they
had seen. In truth, they may never see such a thing again.
Then alone one day, I hooked a fish just outside the break. I was closer
than the "C" buoy seen from Chatham Light and wire lining for
a striper near the bottom.
Suddenly, a pod of tuna broke the surface just off my starboard quarter
and grabbing a spinning rod from the holder, I made a quick cast while they
were still boiling. The strike came just as I started to retrieve my little
bluefish lure. The "fight" lasted all of about ten seconds.
That tuna spooled me before I had any chance to clear the trolling line
or even turn the boat. One hundred and eighty yards, five hundred and forty
feet of 14 pound test left that reel quicker than I had ever seen line disappear
before. The crack of the parting line was the fish's parting shot.
I have to admit, I liked the experience. It was a lesson in brute strength
and blistering speed that I was unfamiliar with. Not even Gulf coast barracuda,
who are no slackers for speed or bonefish on the flats had prepared me for
what that tuna had done to me.
That summer, the strongest I'd caught were twenty pound bluefish. They
demonstrated their muscle for ten or twenty minutes before easing up on
their runs and had nothing on that tuna.
Thinking back, the only fish in that pod that I had clearly seen looked
to be about three feet in length. That would make it a seventy pound school
fish and if the one I hooked was that size, it had my line beat five to
one. Of course, I'd never even seen it.
I knew that not counting a few sturgeon (one hauled my canoe a mile upstream
in the Connecticutt River once on fifty pound test) or shark (I had one
of these on this past summer that never responded to line pressure but took
me from Pollock rip out a couple of miles east before abrading through the
line) that the tuna was the strongest fish I had ever had on. If only briefly.
Afterwards, I gave some thought to what I might have done to stay with
that fish and in the end, it all came down to a need to clear the decks
of other tackle and get to the helm so I could chase him. He prepared me,
in a way, for what was to come.
Three weeks later, in September, I went out through the break alone to catch
a few blues for the smoker. It was a lumpy day with three foot swells left
from a passing Nor'Easter and some chop to boot. I was running my 19' flats
boat and taking a pounding in the waves so I didn't want to be out too long
or too ar. I headed for the first flock of feeding terns.
I had quickly put two fish in the boat and was looking around for more
action when I saw the birds and surface splashes of a big feed out about
another half mile. This would take me a mile and a half off Chatham light
and into rougher water past the C buoy but I figured I'd catch three or
four fish quickly and head back in.
Just as I arrived at the blitz, the birds flew off and the surface action
disappeared. I cast anyway knowing the fish would be sounding chasing the
forage. On the second cast, I felt the solid stop of a strike.
Immediately, the spool of my Diawa Black Gold reel started to scream as
line was ripped off by the fish. It took me a long quarter of a second staring
at my reel before I realized I had another tuna and he was cleaning me out.
By the time I stepped to the helm, started the Merc and threw it in gear,
I could see spool color under the last wraps of my line. The fish had already
taken 150 yards and going strong but soon I was doing 20 knots and reeling
back some of my own while pounding through the swells..
I didn't have a tuna license and I had no illusions of actually landing
the fish. My immediate goal was not to loose him on the first run. That's
all. I just didn't want to loose him.
Ten minutes later, he sounded to the bottom in 120 feet of water and I
had regained half my line. Success! I'd achieved my first goal. And I was
able to throttle back to ten knots or so.
Now I set a new goal. I wanted to play this fish and not break the line
for as long as possible. That simple. I just wanted to hold onto this fish
on 14 pound test and learn from him. Like tracking a deer in snow or lying
on a stream bank and watching trout feed, this fish was going to teach me
about tuna.
For safety, I half inflated the float coat I always wore on the ocean and
cleared all the other rods and tackle from the open area of my boat. I had
to do this between pounding runs, chasing the tuna through the waves, and
when it was all I could do to steer with my free hand and throttle to match
whatever pace he set.
Whenever he slowed, I'd reel back some line and ease the boat to take a
break from the pounding of the ocean.
After an hour of these trials and twenty exchanges of line, I was four
miles out and the seas were up to five foot swells. This made me follow
a winding course when the tuna ran so as to take these waves at an angle.
They weren't breaking but the wind was picking up and starting to blow the
tops off a few. It wasn't an "easy" day.
I was both surprised and pleased that my line and my knot had lasted as
long as it had and I praised the smoothness of that Diawa drag ten times
that first hour. I had no idea where the tuna was hooked and so couldn't
favor one side of the fish over another but I knew my little bluefish lure
wouldn't hold forever.
I was constantly judging my safety in the swells against my goal of hanging
on to the fish. On every run, I had to balance the challenge against the
risk. Still, though the seas were up and the distance to shore ever increasing
with every run, I felt I had a margin of safety.
Fighting the tuna was spectacular. He would run at close to twenty knots
for five minutes then sound to the bottom, turn and run again or come up
faster than I could spin the reel handle. Twice he had touched the surface
within fifty yards but I'd seen nothing more than the splash. He'd done
this two or three times, between straight runs towards deeper water. Always
towards deeper water.
When he slowed, I would try to pump him. Sometimes my efforts seemed to
have an effect and I would think I had him turned or pulled up a bit but
then he would accelerate away in whatever direction he pleased. His power
was undeniable. He was dominant in our relationship. All I could really
do was match his speed with technology and that with difficulty.
An hour and a half after hooking him, we had passed east of the line of
fishing boats working six miles or so offshore. I wondered what they thought
of my little boat racing this way and that without a pattern. I wondered
if they could figure out I was holding onto a fish or if they thought I
was a crazy tourist out too far in seas too big.
My trial with the tuna went on and on. When he ran, I'd run through the
swells following him,holding the rod up one handed, steering and adjusting
the throttle with the other. I watched the line direction for the fish,
the rod tip for the tuna's force and speed and the swells for their angle
to the boat. When I could, I'd glance at the compass and the depth to dead
reckon my position. If he slowed: I'd take back some line, check the drag,
look around for other boats, and spot Chatham light from the top of a wave.
It took riding the top of a swell now just to see. The swells were high
enough that in teh bottom of a trough, my eyes were below the wave tops
around me, even as I stood at my center console.
After more than ninety minutes, I had just about reached my limit with
the ocean and the effort it took to stay on my feet and still fight the
fish. Yet he seemed to be tiring too. His runs were shorter and he sounded
more often. When he rose, I could reel up the slack as fast as he came and
keep pressure on him all the while; something I had never managed in the
first hour. I felt, sometimes, that I was able to turn him toward the boat.
Or perhaps, I was turning the boat toward him.
I saw color for the first time soon after this. A slash of sterling silver
deep below me, four feet of it, passed by for a couple of seconds as he
came up from a sound. Then he turned and disappeared again.
Four feet silver meant five feet of tuna or about 200 pounds of fish at
the end of my line. That was bigger than I had expected and explained his
nearly tireless strength. With my drag set at perhaps 6 - 8 pounds, half
the breaking strength of my line and too much at that, I was barely taxing
his power. However time had apparently done what force had not and he was
not as strong as he had once been.
I saw color two more times in the next half hour and even brought him to
the surface once perhaps forty feet away. I shouldn't have done that.
I was applying more pressure now, touching the side of the spool with my
finger to increase the drag when he ran and pumping harder when he slowed.
The truth is, I was looking for an end to this test of his and mine. The
seas were up, my hands were going numb from the constant strain and I was
tiring of the powerful roll and surge of the boat through big seas.
I had decided to try to bring him in for release or break him off in the
attempt. It was time to force a conclusion to our trial.
The next time he came up slowly from a sound, I pumped him for all I thought
the line could take. I had the outboard in neutral and nearly a 180 degree
bend in the rod when I saw his color perhaps four feet deep and forty feet
away. Not wanting to rest him for a moment I didn't pump but stepped backwards
to keep the pressure on him as I forced him up to the air.
For a moment his head broke the surface. I could see the gap of his mouth,
the black smoothness of his skin and just the front edge of his eye. My
silver lure was in the corner of his mouth.
Then he shook his head once and slipped away beneath the surface without
a splash. My rod leaped back in my hands and something clattered into the
front of my boat.
It was over. The line hung slack from my rod tip. My little silver lure
lay on the deck and another swell lifted and lowered the boat beneath me.
I stood there looking at where he had disappearred and balanced automatically
with a swell. Looking at my watch, it read 2:10 p.m., two hours since I'd
looked during the first run. Two hours and six miles of ocean and now he
was gone. And it was over.
I reeled up and leaned the rod over the rear bench seat. I looked at the
lure, the hooks hadn't even opened. In the end, it had just pulled out.
I checked the GPS for a distance and bearing on Chatham light, it read seven
miles due west. From the top of a swell, I turned the boat and throttled
up to a slow plane through the seas.
I was surprised, I felt pretty good. There was no dissapointment. The closer
I got to shore the more the stress of fighting the seas left me and the
more exhilarated I felt. By the time I was coming through the north gap
in the break I wanted to shout how good it felt to struggle and endure and
be out in the elements. I felt like I was the master of all I surveyed.
The wind was gusting pretty well, to small craft warnings at least, and
the waves were four feet and breaking on the bar as I pounded in. But it
didn't matter much, life was full and I felt a part of it.
I heard a bang behind me as I came off a wave top and turned in time to
see the back seat flip up in a gust and the rod and reel sail out over the
transom. They landed and sank out of sight thirty feet behind the boat.
I continued to quieter waters then slowed and turned. It was no day to
go back into those breakers to look for anything.
I turned and motoring into the shelter of shore, I thought about the two
important lessons I'd reaped this day. Skill, patience and endurance had
yielded me a great experience. And in the midst of a moment of arrogance,
I'd been humbled.
It was a good day.
Email Capt.Michael Eichenseer
Click my sign for charter information.