First Time Tuna Fishing in Over 20 Years - Epic Fight With Monster Bluefin!

I'm not a tuna guy, I admit it. While I love eating tuna, the thought of going out that far and potentially catching nothing (while sometimes not even holding a rod, yeah, talking about trolling here) does not excite me.
On this September date though, with no charter booked, I agreed to join my friend Jay with his good friends Jock and Eliron as they headed only 30 miles off of Shinnecock in Eastern Long Island for some of these tasty fish.
The end result was an almost four hour battle with a giant bluefin.
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[@JohnDoe-rs7gh]

Awesome vid!!! About time you went out for some blue water fishing...please get out some more and post more of these.

[@roccovee]

You should try jigging and popping for yellowfin and bluefin. Muchhhhh more exciting than trolling and chunking. Insane fishery off of Long Island for the jig and pop bite. Might spark your love for targeting tuna!

[@mathewsutphen2815]

Welcome to Tuna Fishing!!!

[@brianfitzpatrick8448]

Thanks for the video.

[@participationtrophyfishing]

Great Vid John! Never caught one myself but I have hooked and fought unknowns when striper fishing. I will try for them a few more times hopefully this year and can't wait to get my first.

[@jimd312]

Great vid! had me on the edge of my seat. Figured it was going to be lost when you mentioned the possibility of heart break at the beginning. Especially loved when you kept zooming in on the rod tip around the 21:30 timeframe. was expecting it to go pop around then!

[@sapelesteve]

Interesting video John. Have personally caught many Tuna in the past. I am really surprised that you guys were only using a 30 lb leader. There is no way that you can boat a good sized tune using that type of set up. Also, after such a long fight like that, I doubt that Tuna will be able to survive for very long. I think that you need to head out with someone that knows how to fish for Tuna on your next trip! There are many good charters leaving out of Montauk. Better luck next time.

[@vinhdoan3629]

@@sapelesteve Glad someone said it… that captain does not know what he’s doing. Not only did he lose the fish using that light of a leader, that fish is probably dead too after the exhaustion of a 4 hour fight…

[@jiggingjerks]

Thanks for both comments guys. I mentioned it in the video but these guys have been doing this for years and typically use heavier leader. They went with 30 here because it was a bright, calm sunny day and we were relatively close to shore. I don't think anyone predicted a monster fish would wind up on the line. The radio chatter was loaded with boats mentioning catching them on 30. I think if we had to do it all over again, we would have tightened the drag at some point earlier and lived with the consequences

[@vinhdoan3629]

Awesome video! I think using light leader for tuna is the dumbest thing ever invented. I was fishing that same bite off of Long Island on Sept 12 using 130 lb leader and caught a 67” BFT. What is the point of using 30lb leader to try and provoke a bite just to decrease your chances of landing it substantially! Whoever’s idea was to use 30lb leader LOL… that fish was probably not even 50 inches. A giant tuna would have spooled the entire reel before you guys were able to clear the other rods and chase the fish.

[@jiggingjerks]

I think the guys weren't expecting to hook a big fish. The GoPro doesn't do it justice, but these guys thought the fish was north of 200. We saw it a bunch of times, but again, GoPros don't do well on anything more than 20 feet away.

[@jtpalooki7757]

Amazing how close those giants get to shore..

[@anthonyrosamilia9269]

Thanks for sharing. My observations: even with the 30lb leader, tuna up to around 100lbs should be able to be handled in 30 minutes or less. Once you go past that you are looking at a much bigger bluefin or maybe a foul hooked situation, but either way, at an hour you have to put more heat on the fish. You shouldn't be fighting a tuna for multi-hours at which point, even if you boat it, the meat will probably be cooked from the long fight.

[@jiggingjerks]

Yup. I think the thought though was we weren't radically offshore and weren't expecting that big a tuna to hit our line. A number of boats over the radio talked about catching fish with 30 pound leader

[@johnmccreary1554]

How can any fish be that powerful

[@thesaltybucktail3244]

Devastating

[@wattsup4800]

How’d you like the v10 mercs? Looking at them on my 36 cat

[@jiggingjerks]

Awesome engines. The torque is sick. Boat stops on a dime with light reverse and you have to hold on when the throttles go down.

[@pj3039]

anytime the drag pulls and stops repetitively like that its not good

[@robertwestrom6878]

I would like to boat one just to say I did it.

[@georgeniebergall7074]

You should’ve started this video at three hours and 49 minutes shows the fish being caught went on to go fishing for flukes

[@SolitaryWarrior2006]

drag too tight