In most cases, fish are measured in inches, and fish fights are measured in minutes. But for some anglers, it is a gift-or a punishment-to battle fish (BLUEFIN TUNA) better measured in yards for hours on end.
Leaving Fisherman’s Wharf at noon on Monday, April 12, Troy Lancaster and his friends headed offshore to search for swordfish 70 miles offshore aboard the 64-foot sportfisher “Quantified.” In search of live bait, Capt. Justin Drummond motored 150 miles offshore to an oil rig 150 miles off the coast. Arriving before dawn, they began trolling for live bait, and when the tubes were full, they switched to the big guns.
One of their live skipjack tuna was hit immediately, but the attacker didn’t stick to the 19/0 circle hook.
After 15 minutes, we caught a 400- to 500-pound blue marlin, but we broke him off,” Lancaster, 50, told MeatEater. “He came out perfectly, about 10 feet above the water.”
The rod came tight on something very large at 9:20 a.m. after another missed strike suspected to be marlin.
“She nearly spooled us. Not completely, but she got us down to the backing three times,” Lancaster said. “She was in complete control the first three or four hours. Anything she wanted, she did.”
They considered yellowfin, but realized that yellowfin do not get that big. Some bet on blue marlin, but that was ruled out due to it not being on the surface and jumping.
Despite our suspicions, it never showed itself. It never came up.”
In many cases, when blue marlin come up to the surface to run, you can back the boat down on them and chase them, Lancaster said, which gives you a lot of edge over them. You can’t back the boat or do anything when the fish is straight up and down. You’re completely helpless. It’s all you can do is pull back and gain some line.
From the fighting chair, Lancaster hauled back and reeled down for hours upon hours, only to repeatedly lose line. The fish dragged the boat 8 miles. However, eventually, the line gave up. The weight never faded, 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. In order to breathe, tuna have to have water flowing over their gills and through their mouth. If they stop moving, they will die. They cannot fan their gills like many other fishes.
Unfortunately, a fish weighing almost 900 pounds isn’t buoyant, Lancaster explained. In order to gain any line, we pulled very slowly for two hours just to lift the fish up in the water column, then backed down really hard to pull out the scope.
Nine hours later, at 6:30 p.m., a behemoth bluefin tuna emerged from the depths.
“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.”
121 inches long and 84 inches wide, the bluefin measures 10 feet long by 7 feet around. Although they had planned to stay through the night and for another day, they decided instead to get the potential record fish weighed, processed, and frozen right away. Fisherman’s Wharf officials weighed the fish at 876 pounds, beating the old Texas state record from 1985 by 68 pounds. Anglers also caught an 840-pound bluefin last year, but it wasn’t accepted as a new record.
The crew met with biologists from Texas A&M’s Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies to collect organ and meat samples.
Lancaster said the fish was a female and had already spawned, which pleased him. “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 quite a bit of weight. They also cut back on their food.”
NOAA Fisheries allows a recreational quota of 2,500 pounds for bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico, so even if the fish had not died on the line, they probably would have kept it anyway, Lancaster said. Anglers are not allowed to target bluefin tunas deliberately, but they may harvest one greater than 73 inches per vessel during the short season. During the spring, this population of bluefin migrates up the East Coast to the waters off Nova Scotia from their Gulf spawning grounds.
The Atlantic bluefin has been the poster child of overfishing for decades. Their massive size and population decline, combined with their high price at auction, make them an obvious focal point in discussions about overfishing.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Atlantic bluefin stocks fell significantly by nearly 80%. In response to this, NOAA joined forces with the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas to devise one of the most comprehensive fisheries management strategies globally. Some of these efforts included implementing seasonal closures and tight retention limits, as well as innovative approaches such as the Individual Bluefin Tuna Quota Program to create economic incentives for commercial fishers to reduce bluefin bycatch. Additionally, restrictions were imposed on long-line gear in the Gulf of Mexico which cut back 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. NOAA released a statement declaring that U.S.-caught Atlantic bluefin tuna is a sustainable food choice in 2019 because the total bluefin biomass had increased by 60% from its lowest point.
A study estimates that Atlantic bluefin stocks have decreased by nearly 30% since 2017. As a result of the increased quotas and relaxed regulations over the past three years, stock numbers are starting to dip again. The bluefin fishery isn’t totally unsustainable anymore, but its status remains tenuous.
It has been 35 years since Lancaster started fishing bluewater. His family has been enjoying the highly prized 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.
I like raw tuna on a salt block with some hot sauce or wasabi on top. That’s probably my favorite.”
Their record catch has also been a source of praise and notoriety for Lancaster and the Quantified crew.
“We’re 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: Themeateater
