This is yet another oddity during the oddest summer of local sportfishing in recent history. Not because it’s a yellowfin tuna–thousands have been caught since June, during the best local yellowfin bite in recent history–but because of its size.
Most yellowfin caught in U.S. waters, during years when the subtropical species migrates this far north, weigh between 10 and 40 pounds. A 40-pound yellowfin is considered huge.
The 101-pound yellowfin was caught Monday by David Adamson aboard the San Diego-based Coral Sea. It would have been several pounds heavier had a hammerhead shark not bitten off its tail section while it was hooked.
“I caught him on a kelp with three other boats there,” Adamson told SDfish.com. “About 15 other yellowfin were caught [on the same floating kelp paddy], all under 20 pounds.”
The tuna bit a flylined sardine, hooked to 30-pound-test fluorocarbon line.
Yellowfin tuna can get much larger. The San Diego long-range boats travel to southern Baja and points south, and target yellowfin weighing 100 to 400-plus pounds.
The all-tackle world record is a 427-pound specimen caught by Guy Yocom south of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in 2012.
The phenomenal fishing off Southern California this summer is attributed to unusually warm water that essentially has transformed the region into a subtropical environment. Tuna, dorado, pufferfish, and needlefish are among the subtropical species to have been landed.
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