News - The Hook Up!

We left out of Stage Harbor on Friday the 11th and headed to Nantucket for the First Annual Nantucket Bluefin Blast Tourney. I had been chartered by Joe and Rich Record, Kevin Simon and Jimmy Tomaiolo . The forecast for the weekend was anything but good, but it is a tuna tourney in the NE, in the fall, this is how it is. We hit Nantucket early with high hopes of a few beers and a few laughs and an early bedtime. I had the best crew I could ask for with my brother Matt and son Corey in the cockpit so all we need is the weather to back off a little bit. We had some fun and I hit the bunk around 10 P.M. and listened all night long to the 30 kts of wind and driving rain, I didn’t sleep a wink. I got up when my cell phone rang and it was one of my buddies. We decided that we would all run out together and we decided to leave at 5:30 A.M. and wait for the tide to change and come with the wind. It was a long slow ride out but far better than what I thought we would face.

When we hit the grounds there had already been a few bites so I was hot to get one in the boat quickly. My plan was to fish my big fish spread which consisted of two ballyhoo on the long riggers on the 130 rods and three splash bars on the 70’s, two on the corners and one in the center rigger waaaaay back there. I picked the “Chameleon” for the center rigger because it has been my go to bar all season long. The “Fatal Attraction” hooked up and landed a nice 66 inch fish right in front of me and another boat, the “A1A” had a 66 inch fish on ice too. The leader board was setting up so we needed something in the mid to high 60 inch range or we had to just release it. We finally got tight on the ballyhoo long rigger and had a mid to upper 50 inch fish which we released on the leader. We had several more bites on the Hoo and a couple of bites on the center rigger splash bar. The “Reel Therapy” had one on deck around the 66 inch mark so things were shaping up and we knew what we needed. All of a sudden the right rigger clip pops and Matt is on the 130 reeling hard, but he never comes tight. Ah, we missed him. Then the 130 just doubles over and we are tight and the line is dumping pretty good. This is a good fish, not a giant but definitely upper 60 inches easy. This is the one we need. We get on him hard and move the rod to the post and we have him tight. Kevin is on him hard and he has got him about 50 feet out and all of sudden, donk, the hook pulls. Been, there, done, that…. Here we go again. Nice fish for sure. So back on the troll we go. A few more misses and it is starting to get late but hey it’s a two day tourney. Around 2 pm my brother yells "center rigger" and I hear the sound of the rigger clip exploding. I turn to see nothing but whitewater where the splash bar was. Matt is yelling “big fish!, big fish!....I saw the whole bite!” The Penn 70Vs is screaming. Big Joe gets in the harness and steps up big-time for what will become a battle of a lifetime. We are clearing all the other lines and I hear “DACRON” and I watch as the hi-vis green Dacron goes flying off the reel. I am so pumped; we got a good fish on here, a big fish, not a schoolie but a tourney wining fish for sure. Scary to have that kind of pressure on you from the "get go", but hey, that is what it’s all about brother!

Before I can even blink Corey is yelling that the fish is not stopping and we are losing the line very quickly. I had the “Tammy Rose” in reverse and the RPM’s were coming up. At my shop we load our reels with a black mark at 200yds left on the reel and a red mark at 100 yds left. I have never seen the black mark, not ever. When the black mark left the reel I knew we were in deep trouble. Corey was yelling that we were getting spooled and that we had to get on this fish. The turbo’s were screaming, the black smoke was pumping and I had that boat spinning around in seconds. It must have looked like something out of “ESPN’s Billfish X-treme Release League”. I got on the radio and told a boat near me that we had a very big fish on and that we had well over 600 yds of line out and we had to go hard after the fish. I had the boat spun and we were on him at 7 knots with a nice big belly in the line. Joe was reeling like a mad man. My focus was not to overun the fish and get the line in the props. For the next 45 mins. all we did was chase the fish. I would get the line back, turn the boat, put Joe in the corner and the fish would just dump us. I can not say enough about Joe as and angler. He was so on this fish and never once stopped the pressure or cranking. He was a stud. I could not have had a better effort. We finally got the fish stopped at the hour mark and had him up and down. One hour of shear madness. All of a sudden we started to get him up and we saw color from the squid bar but we never got a good look at the fish, just a shadow, a very, very big shadow. This fish was just eyeballing us, just checking us out and he was not on his side, he was swimming straight up and we hadn’t even begun to hurt him yet. On the second pass I swear I heard the fish laugh at me because he looked up and saw us fighting him with a stand-up rod and a 70. He then took off and we would not see him again for the next 4 hours.

I could go on and on about the next 4 hours but I am not going to. I tried every boat tactic and trick I knew but I could not get this fish up. At the two hour mark, around 4 pm we started to think about the weigh station rules and that we had to be inside Nantucket Boat Basin by 7:30 P.M. for the fish to count. The clock was ticking. We were an easy 42 miles from the dock. Joe reluctantly gave up the rod with the hopes that fresh legs could get to the fish quicker. Kevin jumped into the fight and we bumped up the drag and went as hard at the fish as we could. Kevin went has hard as he could and we but huge pressure on this fish trying to break him. He went big but the fish never slowed. We put my 20 year old son in the harness and cranked up the drag even more and Corey went one and a half hours kicking the crap out of the fish. Corey had to swap out harnesses so Jimmie jumped in and he took a little tuna tango around the cockpit and got to fight the fish for about 15 minutes. With the other harness and with gloves on Corey was cranking down on the spool stopping the fish from running and putting huge drag on the fish! My “BFT” rod was incredible! That is one strong blank that Seeker makes. It is a kick ass rod. No doubt. But we still were not winning. I looked at my brother and at 6 pm, 4 hours into the fight, we made Corey put the rod in the gunwale rod holder. I am so glad I fish short bent butts! We dropped the reel into free spool, cranked up the preset and Matt went “Old School” on his ass. Corey did not want to come off the fish but we had to try something else. With gloves on Matt would stop the fish from running and all I could think was, we are either going to get him, break him off or break the rod trying, but, I am not fighting this fish into the darkness - no way. With the short rod in the holder I had to make the "Tammy Rose" dance like she has never danced before. It was the hardest I have ever had to work at the helm on a fish. Thank goodness for twin engines! At 6:45 I could see the fish on the fish finder at 50 feet. He was just hanging there and he had been there for over two hours. In desperation I tried two deep “Poon” shots but never even came close. On the second shot I think I spooked him because he made a quick run and then we got a ton of line back really quickly. I watched as the fish came up on the fish finder from 70 feet to about 40 feet and then the line just started to come up and there he was, 50 feet from the boat, he just bobbed his head. What a freaking slob! Corey had the "Poon" and I started to back down on the fish. Corey was ready but the fish went back down. Two more circles and he started to come back up. I jumped from the bridge and grabbed the “Poon” and had Corey get on the controls. Corey spun the boat and backed right down on the fish as Matt cranked hard. I watched as the fish just sat there at the surface and I was ready to take the shot, suddenly the fish began to twitch and slowly go down so I threw the “Poon” at him and I thought I had missed him. I franticly grabbed the dart line and once I pulled in the slack I realized I had him good. Matt was on the leader, I was on the dart line and Corey and Kevin came on the tail and before I could say another word he was tail roped and ours! Five freaking hours and darkness setting in, the most epic battle of my career was over. The fish was big! The hugs and high fives flew around the cockpit and when it all settled I knew that the seven of us would never forget this day! It's 9:05 pm so I will finish this story tomorrow afternoon but I have to get some sleep because I am fishing in the morning! I am still Open for the Hyannis Anglers Tuna Tourney, dates are Sept 25^th through the 27^th . Come on, you got to play if you want to win. Give me a call if you are interested. Capt. Eric

So now we are all watching this amazingly huge animal tailroped, all lit up with neon blue, it looked awesome. The realization that we had finally got this fish after an epic battle, and that everyone on the boat shared in the fight and end game, made it even more special for all of us. The sun was now gone and darkness started to envelope the boat. We turned on the deck flood lights and stood back in awe of the fish. Earlier in the fight when we knew we couldn’t possibly make the weigh in station in time there was a huge emotional swing on the boat. We were all so disappointed that it almost ended our desire to beat this fish. But it only lasted for a few minutes because the fish wouldn’t let us dwell on the negative and he was still there, on our line, and after the time we had already spent our prize would be the knowledge and the experience of landing such a beast. We kicked it into gear and we got the job done. The feelings that I have for the other men on my boat that I shared this with can not be put into words. Two of them our family and the others are now going to be my friends. We have a bond that no one else could ever understand unless you were there on the decks of the “Tammy Rose” that night. It truly was a special feeling that we will all not soon forget. To me, catching a giant bluefin tuna has always been an unbelievable experience, with every fish and battle so uniquely different and special but this fish will be at the top of the list for along time, burned into my memory as so many other lifetime achievements, always there to recall and relive and re-tell.

Now we had to get the fish cooled down, bleed and on the boat. I reminded everyone that we still had tomorrow and that the tourney is not done for us. We needed to make the best plans for the rest of the night to get as much rest as we could because we needed to get back out there as early as possible for the second day of the tournament. We got the fish up on deck and it taped out at 110 inches and it was fat! One of the bigger fish I have had on the deck. I called it around 800 lbs. Corey and I got it gutted and gilled and he iced it and got it in the body bag. We headed for Stage Harbor and at 9:00 pm I finally got cell phone service and had 8 voicemails. I called my wife, Tammy, who I knew was going to be very worried because she had not heard from me all day. I explained what had happened and how we had been on the fish for 5 hours and I knew she would be upset. She told me she would give me a pass this time since we got the fish. I told her we would be in Stage at 10:15pm. I next called my good friend Capt. Bob DeCosta on Nantucket and told him that we got it and I next spoke with the tournament director and owner of “Slip 14” Restaurant, Jonas Baker, and asked him if it was OK for us to leave from Chatham for the next day. He told me he was sorry that we didn’t make the time but glad we hung in there and got the fish and that it was no problem to leave from Chatham. Corey and I then made another 10 calls to family and friends, the kind of calls you love to make. We got into Stage at 10:10pm and to my surprise we were greeted by my wife and twin daughters. Tammy never comes down to see our fish, but this was a different night. She understood what it meant to us to land such a big fish on light tackle and to have all three of the Stewart boys on the boat together made it even more special. The fish weighed 730lbs with no guts or gills so I would put the fish at 775lbs. I finally left the pier at 11:20 and the guys slept on the boat.

After a quick 3 hour nap I hit the boat around 4:15am with coffee in hand and away we went. We had another 40 mile ride out and the fog was thick as ever. After yesterday’s adventure my crew was running at maybe 50% strength. Everyone was physically exhausted and mentally whopped, but our spirits were high. After re-reading part one I noticed that I forgot to mention how rough it was yesterday and how fighting that fish in 3to5 foot seas on top of some bigger swells was incredible. Everyone who fought that fish got thrown around that cockpit like a rag doll both from the fish dragging them and the seas tossing them. I had one goal for today and that was to catch a fish that could get us on the board and into the money. There was no way we could go through today what we went through yesterday, we were all just too beat up. I was over the fact that we had caught the biggest fish in the tournament and it wasn’t going to count, today was a new day and we could still place in the money. Yesterday we had 9 bites and lots of shots so we could do it again.

We hit the grounds and went lines in and the fog was thick. A few fish in the mid 60in range had been caught so the bar was set. We fished hard and had the same 5 rod spread out like we had the day before with only one exception, we had all Penn 130’s out. When I went home last night I grabbed an extra 130 to add to the spread. So with 2 Hoo’s and three splash bars out we went to work. During the morning we missed a couple on the Hoo’s and one on the splash bar and my crew was getting antsy. We needed a fish. The bite was much slower than yesterday so we just needed something decent to have a shot. Around noontime Matt was up on the bridge with me and we were discussing the fishing when a nice tuna exploded on the center rigger, “Chameleon” again. Corey was on it fast and worked his magic and he got it to come back twice and hooked him good. WE ARE ON!!!! The fish looked good to me and we got Richie on the rod. He battled for awhile and then everyone took a turn. We got the fish to the boat and he made another run. Corey was on the leader and he said it was a good fish and Matt was on the gaff. The second run at the boat he was ours, gaffed and roped. We were on the board. It is so hard to judge the size of the fish from the flybridge and I had told Corey to make the call as he was on the leader. He firmly said the fish was in the low to mid 60’s and that is what we needed. We dragged the fish for awhile and got him up on deck and measured him at 65 ½ inches. It would be close at the dock but when we announced the length over the radio I knew we had a shot. With the fish in the bag and on ice we decided that we had done our job and I wanted to be the first boat to weigh in so at 2:45pm we pulled the plug and headed to Nantucket for the scales. The boys rested as I steamed for Great Round Shoal Channel and as I sat there drinking my iced tea I couldn’t help but feel a little bummed. I have been here before and so close so many times to winning a tuna tournament and I have had the winning fish on only to lose him in two different tournaments. At least this time we caught him and no one can take that away from us. We had caught the largest fish in the tournament, but we did not win. It was a little bitter sweet.

When we pulled the “Tammy Rose” into Nantucket and backed down towards the weigh station, we got some ohs and ahs as we had the tuna tail from the big fish hanging from the flybridge, our trophy from the night before, on display to prove our story. We weighed in the 65 incher and she hit the scale at 151.0 lbs and put us tied in weight with “Fatal Attraction’s” fish and 4th place for the tourney. We waited for the last boat to come in and no one had beaten our fish. We ended up winning the daily Calcutta for the largest fish of the day which paid $3000 and 4th place overall which got our crew a nice set of custom stand-up rods. Not too bad after all. A little pay back. The boat the “A1A” won the tourney with 164.4lb tuna and they took home all the other prize money. 29 boats and only two boats took the money and we were one of them. Maybe we had some good luck after all, aye? The party light was lit on the “Tammy Rose” and stayed well stoked for the remainder of the evening and since my crew missed the Saturday night party we had a little catching up to do. The awards were a blast and the food and drink and staff at “Slip 14” restaurant were awesome. I want to thank Jonas Baker and his staff for putting on such a great tournament and my crew for working their tails off and catching a fish of a lifetime. We will be back next year for sure.