Old Man And The Sea

[rpcrowe]

Here's the old man (me!)...



These are shots done with my Fuji XP60 underwater camera. I often mention when posting that the type of gear you use can be predicated on your final use for the images. These are just record images of the fishing trip I made yesterday on my son-in-law's boat. The quality of the images from this camera is not great BUT... they do the job and an underwater camera is just the thing use while fishing in a private boat. Scott, our friend and fellow fisherman fell overboard while gaffing one of these large tuna. Any camera except an underwater camera would have been ruined. I keep my wallet, cellphone and electronic car fob below decks. The XP-60 is in my shirt pocket. Sorry no shots of Scott in the water, I was too busy hanging on to his arm...

Scott and an estimated 35-40 lb. yellowfin tuna. BTW: Scott is a massive man about 6'5" and weighing about 275 pounds. He dwarfs the tuna...


Scott fighting that tuna


Our haul of 15-40 lb. Tuna


Mike, my son-in-law taking the tuna ashore from the marina dock...


Due to some complicated Fish and Game Department regulations, you cannot clean the tuna at sea. I certainly didn't want to clean a couple of fish this big at home. We dropped our fish off at a local fish processor who will clean the fish, pack the meat in one pound sections, vacuum pack it and flash freeze the lot. That keeps our wives a lot happier!

BTW: Yellowfin Tuna is often sold as Ahi (a generic Hawaiian name for tuna including Bigeye Tuna and Albacore) in restaurants and fish markets. It is absolutely delicious.

[KimC]

Enjoyed the series Richard. Fishing is a lot of fun; I use to enjoy blue fishing with my dad.

[Shadowman]

Nice catches on the images and fish.

[bnnrcn]

Very nice series and the story, thanks for sharing

[IzzieK]

Good fish story, Richard...are you limited (by boat or person) how many fish you can take home?

[rpcrowe]

There are limits but they vary by fish type. The limit for yellowfin tuna (the fish we were catching) is ten per fisherman. However, I would not keep ten of these big fish because that would be between 200 and 400 pounds of fish. Multiply that by four fisherman and that is a gargantuan amount of tune in a private boat. I don't keep fish that I cannot eat. I also don't keep fish to give away although, I will occasionally give some fish to friends or relatives.

Actually, the smaller yellowfin tuna in the 10-40 pound class are safer to eat because they are younger and do not have the build-up of mercury in their bodies like the older and bigger fish.

This YouTube video shows the size tuna caught on the long range trips from San Diego.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ9anhJ_Fic

I have no desire to stay aboard any boat for 3-14 days or to fight big tuna like these. I prefer a smaller private boat and trips that are six to eight hours in duration. My son-in-law's boat is 38 feet long. He has a fish hold in which we keep the fish on ice after they are caught.

I just found out that if we cut the heads off the fish and remove their entrails at sea (recycling the head and entrails into the ocean) it is legal as far as the Fish and Game Department goes because they can be identified as yellowfin and not bluefin tuna. However, since the fish procexsing company charges for the weight of the fish that is turned into them - we will save about 20% of the processing cost ny not submitting heads and guts.