Kilsong's big fish

[johndtuttle]

Originally Posted by Bay Bruiser

Hey Johndtuttle, We do have a west coast in New Zealand, sort of reminds me of when we won the americas cup and a nz reporter asked someone in
San Diego where NZ was? They replied it was an island off the coast of Australia that you could access across a bridge on the weekends !!! Well only if the bridge is four thousand kilometers long!
Our blue fin fishery are catching fish upto 1063 lbs caught April 09. I am not aware of the southern and northern mixing though

O yea, no slight to our Kiwi friends at all who have plenty of Giants in their waters.

Here in the States when we say 'west coast' it is generally understood to mean the west coast of North America and it looks like the vast majority of Giants are gone :*(. sorry for the confusion.

[johndtuttle]

Originally Posted by Torsk

I came to California in 1987 after 12 years commercial fishing in Scotland, Ireland and England. I started commercial fishing out of San Pedro on the Seiner "Pioneer" skippered and owned by Bennie Mattera and his son John. May-June, The spotter planes that worked for us spotted large animals west of Santa Barbara Island. At first the pilot thought these were dolphins and then realized they were not porpoising. 3 boats in our code group headed out after the fish. We set on a mark and took 110 monster Bluefin. The smallest fish we had was 800lbs. These fish were so big they were smashing up the 2x4s on the decking with their were thrashing.

That was the last run of giant Bluefin I know of on the west coast.

Torsk

thx for that. here's hoping you guys left some! .

[elpulkez]

nice cath man ,well i hope some day ill cath a gint tuna too.. i hope if not i still love fishing =)

[Cpt simas]

Wow!!! Thats a huge cow!!!
That reminds me of my dad talking about the 500 - 650 kg fish they used to get and i would pay just to see a fish like that! How about getting a fish almost as big as this one spear-fishing!? I know a guy who caught a 655# Blue Fin Tuna just like that! And that just sounds crazy to me!

Congrats on the awesome catch!!!

[lilharcher]

Awesome catch.....great story and pics as well. Too bad you didn't get a look at the "1000" beast......in actuality, it could have been a really mean 500lb fish, you just never know until you get a look at em. Congrats again on a great catch and good luck next time with the "beast" that got away.

[JJONES660]

[QUOTE=Torsk;1508789]I came to California in 1987 after 12 years commercial fishing in Scotland, Ireland and England. I started commercial fishing out of San Pedro on the Seiner "Pioneer" skippered and owned by Bennie Mattera and his son John. May-June, The spotter planes that worked for us spotted large animals west of Santa Barbara Island. At first the pilot thought these were dolphins and then realized they were not porpoising. 3 boats in our code group headed out after the fish. We set on a mark and took 110 monster Bluefin. The smallest fish we had was 800lbs. These fish were so big they were smashing up the 2x4s on the decking with their were thrashing.

That was the last run of giant Bluefin I know of on the west coast.

Torsk

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++

Thanks for sharing this...I knew there was talk about these behemouths existing on our side of the country but the talk was always only commercial guys would ever get em and even that was rare as could be...when I worked on the Spirit I had one captain who swore he's had some hooked and spooled and people just assumed big tuna but who knows how big . If my 130lb bigeye in 99 was able to take a 6/0 to the knot in less than a minute imagine what something over 500lbs would do to any of the equipment leaving SD harbor

[26grumpy]

speechless.......really

[RBuck]

Originally Posted by johndtuttle

Kil Song and crew landed a 104" giant on bait and lost a much bigger one off Chatham, Cape Cod 10/4/09.

Hopefully his own report will follow soon with details of the battle.

Congrats to all for this amazing catch!! ps:full details now posted by ksong.

Nice fish. Please tell us more.
Rob Buck
Venice, La.

[johndtuttle]

just go through the whole thread and you'll find Mr. Song's full report .

[MikFly]

Amazing indeed! Well done Mr. Song! Excellent write-up!

John - I have a follow-on question. As with 99% of all fishing, you crank after you lift up the pole. Now with the pole in the rod holder, how does it work in that case? Do you simply just keep reeling and reeling...not sure how that works.

[ECMFab]

Originally Posted by MikFly

Amazing indeed! Well done Mr. Song! Excellent write-up!

John - I have a follow-on question. As with 99% of all fishing, you crank after you lift up the pole. Now with the pole in the rod holder, how does it work in that case? Do you simply just keep reeling and reeling...not sure how that works.

I would think its like rail rodding where you use the swell and lift of the boat to pull up then reel down. VERY NICE FUCKING FISH BTW... It looks fake, its so big.

[ksong]

Some might wonder how the giant was lifted. Here are pictures how we did.