800 Pound Tuna Off Boca Raton
Capt Mike Busse was hired to help George Lantire learn the ropes of daytime swordfishing on his new boat. What a way to break in a new boat.
“You never know what you’re going to catch in that depth,”
“You never know what you’re going to catch in that depth,” said Mike. “We were daytiming for swords in 1,600 feet. We had a dolphin belly on for bait. When we got bit, it began to pull us offshore, taking line for more than two hours. We thought it could be a thresher shark, but a shark wouldn’t do that. Another hour and clearly the fish was on the bottom. We started to fear the weight could snag something and break us off so we increased the pressure, which worked and the fish started to come up slowly. When we finally saw color I thought it was a shark, then I could see a little more fish and screamed swordfish and then we see it closer yet and it’s neither.
Incredibly it’s a huge blue fin tuna.
Incredibly it’s a huge blue fin tuna. The fish was tail wrapped and dead. But, I wasn’t sure we could keep it. It wasn’t until we got word from the NMFS that the quota was open and the fish was legal to keep that we all cheered.“ What a catch. 108 inches long, 80 inch girth and at the end of the day more than 600 pounds of tuna for family and friends.
“What is that???”
“I don’t know what this is, but Jay says it’s a big sea turtle.”
“No, it’s a baby f-ing whale! Holeee shit, we are witnessing a baby fahking whale right now, bro!”
“Oh man, Jay, that’s a tuna, bro! Look at that thing! We are seeing some shit we have never seen before!…”