Deep Sea Fishing Trip Lands Me 65-Pound Bluefin Tuna!!!

One of my buddy's bachelor parties was this weekend and he wanted to do a deep sea fishing trip. We live in Southern California, so we are fortunately able to travel out down south into warmer Mexican waters in hunt for some decent sized fish.

The morning started with a 3:00 am wake up. This is the earliest I have been up in a long, long time -- to include military reserve duty. I went to bed early the night prior under the sedation of a sleeping pill, so I felt decent and energized.

We all gathered near the boat dock at 4:00 am to get logistics taken care of. After finalizing payments and permits, we were on the boat and heading to the bait barge to stock up on live bait.

The boat was off and we had a 2.5 hour boat ride down passed the Coronado Islands into the tuna grounds.

The first couple spots were duds. I was initially getting frustrated with the short time periods spent in each spot. It would seem we'd pull up to a spot, get lines in the water, and then the Captain would say to reel them in and we'd look for a new spot. I thought, "how can we catch fish in such a short time, especially so soon after the chum got thrown out?"

Needless to say, we had to take in the lines, toss the bait, and head to the new spot. The new spot would end up being about the same scenario.

After the second spot, we had a couple of the people on the boat hook up with Yellow Tail tuna. There were three catches in the third spot which made the day seem like we'd be good on catching things.

Well, the usual assumptions set in again and we went through spot after spot after spot with nothing but birds nests in our reels.

Finally, we made it to a spot where this happened....

I had just grabbed a bait and thrown it in the water, when I felt my thumb start to burn as the spool began speeding away. I remembered the deck-hand's advice and waited two seconds before closing the bail. The line got tighter and the drag started spooling out.

The crew came and was on each side of me. They strapped a fishing pole harness around my waist which assisted with the leverage and pressure on my thigh. I'd reel in slowly, straining my back to get the pole to gain enough room to gain slack as I reeled in the difference.

Thirty minutes later, I was physically drained. I had never thought catching a big fish was that much of a workout. My arms and back were almost at muscle failure when I saw the shiny white and blue color come through the water as the fish was dragged closer to the boat. You could tell the fish was as tired as I was. Finally, the fish was right at the boat and the crew gaffed him from each side, hauling him on board.

When everyone finally saw the size of the monster I had been battling the last 30 minutes, they all wowed. I knew at that moment that I'd likely be taking down the boat's jackpot for biggest fish (even though there were only 13 of us on board).

We hit a few more spots which didn't produce any catches, and then finally pulled up the polls for the 2.5 hour ride back home. On the way back, the crew began to cut up the catches from the day. I had them filet my new monster.

While they were cleaning, I had them cut off some great pieces of sashimi. Let me say that fresh sashimi from a fish only hours out of the water was seriously the best seafood I can remember. We had a mix of soy sauce as well with wasabi.

Of course, I had to have a nice fresh brew to celebrate and help it slide down.

After getting home, I weighed my bag to see how much yield I received. I was very impressed to see that I had 40 pounds of fresh tuna! Now, it was time to dig in and begin the task of separating it into packages to decimate the free space in my freezer and refrigerator.

Of course, while cutting it up, I had to make a ton of poke. After all, Father's Day was the day after.

I'm looking forward to having tuna for dinner and snacks for a while. My buddies and I definitely agree we'd like to turn this adventure into an annual thing. I had a great time, but hopefully the booty will be even more plentiful next trip!

Cheers!