Do The Tuna

Mike....Some days everything just comes together as if it was meant to be. Our first day of tuna hunting in Mexico last week was one of those days. The force was with us. It was a smooth ride to the outer banks the sky was blue and the water was warm...but more importantly there were schools of tuna boiling around us and tuna were jumping out of the water after the bait fish. I was still loading my gun when I saw two large tuna cruise below me in the light green haze. I was soon on the hunt, diving steadily to about 35 feet and covering ground on the surface as well. A school passed below me and I dove down towards them for a shot. The fish I was tracking picked up the pace and was leaving me behind when I noticed he was being followed by several more fish the same size. I simply waited to let one of them come by and fired. Soon I landed my largest tuna to date, 65 lbs. My friend Dan soon got his new personal best, a fat tuna of 140 lbs. Later that morning Del shot his new personal best at about that same size. He had already landed a 70 lb wahoo . Soon afterwards I had another school of tuna come by and I upped my personal best to 90 lbs. A little later I saw Skips float standing straight up and I knew he was on too. His weighed about 150 lbs. I was very happy to see that we now all had fish. Except for when I was loading my gun, every sighting of tuna that day by any of us had resulted in a fish on the deck......Near the end of the day I saw a group of about 8 tuna as I was dropping for a dive. I slid down to their level , moved in slowly and fired, hitting a fish broadside. He veered off from the rest of the school with the shaft sticking out evenly on both sides. I headed up toward the surface to get air. A 40 minute fight ensued as he pulled the buoys down repeatedly. Little by little I slid the buoys down the bungee float line to pull the fish towards the surface until they were at the 30 ft shooting line.The fish continued swimming in circles pulling hard. I was impressed with how strong he was. Eventually he was exhausted and I was able to pull him up to the boat for a gaff. It was another personal best for me at 160 lbs! .......The next day we were turned back to port by rough seas and the day after that we were all skunked for the day. But years from now all we'll remember are the personal best tuna fish we all landed that first day in Mexico 2007.....Here are the pictures.....Mel