By CAPE COD TIMES
November 06, 2009
PROVINCETOWN — After a Nantucket sleigh ride off Race Point, Dave Lamoureux landed a 157-pound bluefin tuna yesterday — from his kayak.
"I fought it for about three hours," Lamoureux said. "It probably took another hour to paddle back in."
Lamoureux, a trader from Chicago and part-time Yarmouth resident, has been tilting at kayak fishing records since August. That means paddling a 12-foot-long hunk of plastic out into the open ocean and targeting tuna.
Why tempt fate and powerful fish? "I'm an adrenaline seeker," he said.
And tuna don't give up easy.
"It fights till it dies," said Lamoureux, who added that a tuna once towed him (and his kayak) more than five miles offshore.
"You go for a sleigh ride," Lamoureux said. "At high speed first, and then you slow down. It becomes a vertical fight after that, and then periodically it runs, you know, and you go with it."
He pulled the sea-beast to shore, then a boater helped him tow it to Fisherman's Wharf.
Lamoureux was aiming to beat the world record for unassisted paddle-out kayak fishing for any species, which he believed to be 187-pounds. The Cape Cod Times was unable to verify any official records by press deadline last night, but it was enough to impress Austin Proudfoot of the Goose Hummock Shop, the Orleans sporting goods store where the tuna was officially weighed.
"It's unheard of," Proudfoot said. "To harvest a fish of this size and quality, it really is a special thing."
Proudfoot said Lamoureaux landed the tuna using a seven-foot Van Staal rod and a Fin-Nor offshore reel, considered a heavy spin fishing combo.
"He's setting himself way, way far out of the crowd with what he's doing. It's great," Proudfoot said.
Lamoureux plans to eat the tuna, with help from friends, and perhaps some wasabi.
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