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Second largest yellowfin tuna caught by rod and reel
Excel does it again
(left): Earl Gill with his potential all-tackle world record 443-pound yellowfin tuna caught while fishing aboard the Excel during their first long-range trip of the season.
(right): John Petruescu aboard the Excel in 2012 with the largest yellowfin tuna ever caught by rod and reel at 445-pounds.
(right): John Petruescu aboard the Excel in 2012 with the largest yellowfin tuna ever caught by rod and reel at 445-pounds.
Dock Totals 11/10 – 11/16: 806 anglers aboard 41 half-day to 3-day trips out of San Diego landings over the past week caught 17 bluefin tuna, 77 bonito, 1 halibut, 85 lingcod, 6 perch, 3182 rockfish, 7 sand bass, 51 sculpin, 96 sheephead, 34 spiny lobster (84 released), 312 whitefish, 402 yellowfin tuna (up to 100 pounds), and 208 yellowtail.
Saltwater: A cold front moved through the area, churning up the seas a bit off California and northern Baja, keeping most of the boats at the dock on Friday. Local trips throughout the rest of the week turned in decent numbers on rockfish locally, while trips south of the border off the northern third of Baja concentrated on yellowfin tuna and yellowtail, with a few bluefin tossed in. With rockfish limited to 300-feet or deeper in US waters, boats working the banks off northern Baja are finding excellent rockfish, sheephead, and lingcod action between the tuna and yellowtail stops, making for great mixed-bag fishing without having to ‘deep drop’ beyond a couple hundred feet.
Keeper lobster numbers more than doubled from the week previous with the steeper tide swings during the full moon phase stirring up plenty of food for the nightly crawlers. Hoop-netting bugs on big tide swings can often be a catch 22, stronger currents that can increase feeding activity throughout the food chain can also sweep a hoop net away in the narrower channels, so setting a monitoring is usually done in shorter spans of time when targeting lobster near bay mouth jetties. All in all, it has been another good week in our local fisheries, though the big news, again, comes from the long-range fleet working far to the south in sub-tropical waters.
The Excel returned to the dock on Saturday, November 16, from their 10-day trip off southern Baja with another giant yellowfin tuna in the hold. There have been few fish caught above 300-pounds already early in the winter long-range season and we have had a fantastic grade of 70 to 100-pound yellowfin closer to home halfway down the peninsula over the past several weeks on a late developing bite, but angler Earl Gill just pulled off a rare feat that, if certified, will be a new world record.
Mr. Gill pinned a chunk bait onto a 4/0 circle hook tied to 100-pound fluorocarbon leader backed with 100-pound braid line wound onto a Makaira 20-wide reel with the aim of catching a cow tuna. He was certainly using the setup for a big tuna, but even in ‘cow country’ nobody really expected to see a fish in the mid-400s hit the deck. To put that into perspective, of the millions of yellowfin tuna caught worldwide, there have been a handful caught by rod and reel that weighed over 400-pounds. The current world record is 427-pounds, caught by Guy Yokum in September of 2012 while fishing 100 miles south of Cabo San Lucas aboard his boat, ‘El Suertudo’ (the lucky one). Guy not only broke the all-tackle record for yellowfin, but he also won a million dollars from Mustad Hooks, paid out in fifty annual installments of $20,000.
The previous record was 405-pounds, and there have been a few others over 400-pounds weighed but not qualified as IGFA records. One of those, a whopping 445-pound beast, was also caught in 2012. That fish could not be certified due to crew handling the rod during the fight to assist angler John Petruescu as the fish went around the bow while on anchor. Petruescu was fishing with a small skipjack tuna fly-lined while at the Hurricane Bank off Baja Sur. That is still considered the largest ‘unofficial’ yellowfin ever caught on rod and reel, but now by just two pounds. The really amazing thing is the two largest yellowfin tuna ever caught in the world were both landed during an Excel long-range trip out of Fisherman’s Landing.
Earl Gill’s fish was weighed at Fisherman’s landing on Saturday, tipping the scale at 443-pounds. The catch has been submitted to the IGFA as a pending all-tackle world record. That so few yellowfin over 400-pounds have been caught is mostly due to the fact that they do not have a lifespan as long as some other tunas, such as the long-lived giant bluefin tuna. Pacific bluefin live an average of fifteen years, with some captive-raised fish living as long as 26 years.
Yellowfin tuna live maybe 6 or 7 years. They are voracious feeders and grow quickly, and spawn year-round in the tropics, each female releasing over a million eggs per spawn. By the time a yellowfin reaches 400-pounds, if, it is very near the end of its life. Like dorado, the short life, fast growth, and near-perpetual spawning makes them a potentially sustainable food source, as long as commercial fleets are regulated within a reasonable tonnage. At 31% of the nearly 5-ton total global annual tuna catch, yellowfin is the second most commercially caught tuna behind skipjack, which represents 56% of the total. Bigeye tuna, albacore, and bluefin combined represent the remaining 13%.
Freshwater: As trout season kicks into gear in San Diego County lower elevation lakes, I am happy to report that Santee Lakes has again won national recognition, taking awards for Large Park of the Year for Park and Campgrounds and Plan‐It Green Park of the Year awards from the Outdoor Hospitality Industry at its annual Outdoor Hospitality Conference in Oklahoma City on November 6. This marks the 5th year Santee Lakes has received Park of the Year and the 9th year for Plan-It Green Park of the Year national awards.
Kudos to Santee Lakes for their fine work of providing not only a great in-town fishery for all, but also in setting such a high standard for parks and recreation here in America’s finest county. Whether the beach, bay, lake, or offshore, they’re out there so go out and get ‘em!
Here's something you might be interested in.
Second largest yellowfin tuna caught by rod and reel
Excel does it again
Second largest yellowfin tuna caught by rod and reel
Excel does it again
(left): Earl Gill with his potential all-tackle world record 443-pound yellowfin tuna caught while fishing aboard the Excel during their first long-range trip of the season.
(right): John Petruescu aboard the Excel in 2012 with the largest yellowfin tuna ever caught by rod and reel at 445-pounds.
(right): John Petruescu aboard the Excel in 2012 with the largest yellowfin tuna ever caught by rod and reel at 445-pounds.
Dock Totals 11/10 – 11/16: 806 anglers aboard 41 half-day to 3-day trips out of San Diego landings over the past week caught 17 bluefin tuna, 77 bonito, 1 halibut, 85 lingcod, 6 perch, 3182 rockfish, 7 sand bass, 51 sculpin, 96 sheephead, 34 spiny lobster (84 released), 312 whitefish, 402 yellowfin tuna (up to 100 pounds), and 208 yellowtail.
Saltwater: A cold front moved through the area, churning up the seas a bit off California and northern Baja, keeping most of the boats at the dock on Friday. Local trips throughout the rest of the week turned in decent numbers on rockfish locally, while trips south of the border off the northern third of Baja concentrated on yellowfin tuna and yellowtail, with a few bluefin tossed in. With rockfish limited to 300-feet or deeper in US waters, boats working the banks off northern Baja are finding excellent rockfish, sheephead, and lingcod action between the tuna and yellowtail stops, making for great mixed-bag fishing without having to ‘deep drop’ beyond a couple hundred feet.
Keeper lobster numbers more than doubled from the week previous with the steeper tide swings during the full moon phase stirring up plenty of food for the nightly crawlers. Hoop-netting bugs on big tide swings can often be a catch 22, stronger currents that can increase feeding activity throughout the food chain can also sweep a hoop net away in the narrower channels, so setting a monitoring is usually done in shorter spans of time when targeting lobster near bay mouth jetties. All in all, it has been another good week in our local fisheries, though the big news, again, comes from the long-range fleet working far to the south in sub-tropical waters.
The Excel returned to the dock on Saturday, November 16, from their 10-day trip off southern Baja with another giant yellowfin tuna in the hold. There have been few fish caught above 300-pounds already early in the winter long-range season and we have had a fantastic grade of 70 to 100-pound yellowfin closer to home halfway down the peninsula over the past several weeks on a late developing bite, but angler Earl Gill just pulled off a rare feat that, if certified, will be a new world record.
Mr. Gill pinned a chunk bait onto a 4/0 circle hook tied to 100-pound fluorocarbon leader backed with 100-pound braid line wound onto a Makaira 20-wide reel with the aim of catching a cow tuna. He was certainly using the setup for a big tuna, but even in ‘cow country’ nobody really expected to see a fish in the mid-400s hit the deck. To put that into perspective, of the millions of yellowfin tuna caught worldwide, there have been a handful caught by rod and reel that weighed over 400-pounds. The current world record is 427-pounds, caught by Guy Yokum in September of 2012 while fishing 100 miles south of Cabo San Lucas aboard his boat, ‘El Suertudo’ (the lucky one). Guy not only broke the all-tackle record for yellowfin, but he also won a million dollars from Mustad Hooks, paid out in fifty annual installments of $20,000.
The previous record was 405-pounds, and there have been a few others over 400-pounds weighed but not qualified as IGFA records. One of those, a whopping 445-pound beast, was also caught in 2012. That fish could not be certified due to crew handling the rod during the fight to assist angler John Petruescu as the fish went around the bow while on anchor. Petruescu was fishing with a small skipjack tuna fly-lined while at the Hurricane Bank off Baja Sur. That is still considered the largest ‘unofficial’ yellowfin ever caught on rod and reel, but now by just two pounds. The really amazing thing is the two largest yellowfin tuna ever caught in the world were both landed during an Excel long-range trip out of Fisherman’s Landing.
Earl Gill’s fish was weighed at Fisherman’s landing on Saturday, tipping the scale at 443-pounds. The catch has been submitted to the IGFA as a pending all-tackle world record. That so few yellowfin over 400-pounds have been caught is mostly due to the fact that they do not have a lifespan as long as some other tunas, such as the long-lived giant bluefin tuna. Pacific bluefin live an average of fifteen years, with some captive-raised fish living as long as 26 years.
Yellowfin tuna live maybe 6 or 7 years. They are voracious feeders and grow quickly, and spawn year-round in the tropics, each female releasing over a million eggs per spawn. By the time a yellowfin reaches 400-pounds, if, it is very near the end of its life. Like dorado, the short life, fast growth, and near-perpetual spawning makes them a potentially sustainable food source, as long as commercial fleets are regulated within a reasonable tonnage. At 31% of the nearly 5-ton total global annual tuna catch, yellowfin is the second most commercially caught tuna behind skipjack, which represents 56% of the total. Bigeye tuna, albacore, and bluefin combined represent the remaining 13%.
Freshwater: As trout season kicks into gear in San Diego County lower elevation lakes, I am happy to report that Santee Lakes has again won national recognition, taking awards for Large Park of the Year for Park and Campgrounds and Plan‐It Green Park of the Year awards from the Outdoor Hospitality Industry at its annual Outdoor Hospitality Conference in Oklahoma City on November 6. This marks the 5th year Santee Lakes has received Park of the Year and the 9th year for Plan-It Green Park of the Year national awards.
Kudos to Santee Lakes for their fine work of providing not only a great in-town fishery for all, but also in setting such a high standard for parks and recreation here in America’s finest county. Whether the beach, bay, lake, or offshore, they’re out there so go out and get ‘em!
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