CASTAFARI CATCHES 500 pound tuna on Monday Night

[cappyD]

Hello fishing enthusiasts. I hope everyone is safely indoors at this point. Even the roads are bad!
The Castafari was out there on Monday afternoon. We baited up and headed out with 10 time returning guest "Buddah" and Castafari mates Scotty and Tucker onboard for some giant fishing. We put away the 80's and broke out the big sticks. We got a late start as we intended on staying out for 2 days, and its been an afternoon bite out there. The weather was as good as one can expect this time of year...sun was shining and the ocean was a rolling sheet of glass. On the way out we passed the Tuna Tangler heading in...with 3 fish

By the time we entered the fleet there was action on the radio. On our first drift we watched two boats around us hook-up. It was slack tide...as usual. I'd say 6 fish were caught during this particular slack throughout the fleet of 60 boats. My finder was lit up every now and then by streaking fish...some rising up from 200 feet down to check out my shadowline at 80 feet. I bet there were fish below the boat just out of view inhaling our chum. We werent alone in our frustration We began free-lining. But still no bites!! That is until the sun had finally crept its way beneath the horizon and I had cooked dinner for my hardworking crew(frozen Stouffers pizza) I turned on my underwater Seavision transom lights and switched gears. Scott brought the shadowline bait in tight...just below the lights at 40 feet. I took one bite of my partially still frozen dinner before the rod doubled over. God I love that sound. Off we went to fight our own battle circling through the dark and holding our breath. An hour later up came the shimmering silver glow of a sideways tuna... lit up like a spaceship. It was up to the poon to close this deal, and eventually the fish took one two many upward circles behind the transom. Scotty lanced the fish just behind the gill plate and the big tuna literally stopped in its tracks...for about 5 seconds... and then took off vaporizing 50 feet of dart line... dissappearing back into the shady depths. Tucker had to let go of the leader and duck! This fish was not finished. After some yelling and screaming, mostly by me as I had a video cam in one hand and a throttle control in the other, we brought the fish back up. On went the tailrope and out came the cheap champaign that I had in my fridge from the last Castafari bikini bash...it was in there for a while It measured 95 inches and wieghed 470 without guts/gills...my guess is 500. The fish also had a PAT(pop-up archival tag) in its dorsal. I found out it was tagged in 2006 by Molly B up in Canada. She has some pics of the fish back then when it was guestimated at 325 pounds. There will be a cool video documenting this entire event on the Castafari Monster Club IPTV Show at www.castafari.com. The fish looked good, had great color and ok fat content...certainly good enough to ship. So off it went via Boston Bluefin, to Japan. Hopefully we can get back at it sooner than later. Tight lines!

[chumtini]

I believe there's a reward for that sat tag Nice find!!!

[seaworm1]

Nice work Damon and crew....Its nice not being one of the "spectator boats" that only gets see the boats beside them hook up.

[Captain Greg Sears]

Way to stick it out Damon patience pays off. I wish I had the boat to fish the backside like you guys. The closest thing to dinner I could cook my crew would be a couple of ring dings out of my lunch bucket.

Nice fish hope you do well for a price.

Greg

[backman]

2 years in a row - big fish - no Magoo - hmmmm.

Nice one...

[idigitu88]

Nice job. Love the nite bite

[oldmud]

Good going Damon and crew !! hey did you mean Molly L or Barbara B ?? just curious.

Don

[KnotGolfin']

Great fish guys!

[On The Edge]

Nice Cappy D. Good to see some more hard evidance that taged tuna do survive the T&R.

[stew]

It was one of Dr. Molly Lutcavage's tags from Canada. Nice fish. Capt. Eric