200 plus yellowfin tuna out of Albion

wow, what a catch!

Prospective buyers only wante to buy a percentage of the fish. Ariel is not allowed to cut up fish to sell. So partial buyer would have to take the entire fish and find others to take fish. In this case, Ariel found a business in Fort Bragg that would take the fish, presumably to sell a percentage to others.

Thank you for the clarification.

Well done! We got our 2 out of bragg!

BTW they're big eye tuna. Pectoral fins extend to the root of the 2nd dorsal fin.

Damn nice fish!  Those eyes are huge!  They any good to eat? 

Damn nice fish!  Those eyes are huge!  They any good to eat? 

I like it a lot more than the BFT. It's more like Ahi imo.

That looks fantastic! 

Hey Christian, what lure and terminal gear were you using to land those monsters?

 

Hey Christian, what lure and terminal gear were you using to land those monsters?

Nothing fancy. We were running 4 80# class setups and 2 meatlines as our albie spread and had 2 100# setups as the longer lines. Got the 165lb gilled n gutted fish on the 80# setup which were Penn Fathom 60ld2s (gen1) and this was on a okuma PCH 80-130 rod (we had 2 of these), but we had also an sct 60-120 with mak16 and a graftech 60-80 with a fathom 40nld2. These 4 rods all had around 500yd of 80lb with a 80# topshot. We did run our albie leaders at 100# knowing these big fish with large teeth were around.. That fish took 20 to 25 mins but we were being more gentle with the drag (around 24#).  The 188 gilled n gutted fish took me 15 mins solo (drag around 30#) and was on a 100lb setup which was a penn fathom 80nld2 (gen 2) with 700yd 100# hollow, and a 150# windon leader I tied. Rod was 80-unlimited Daiwa Proteus Tuna Special The other 100# setup was the same reel and line on another pch 80-130.

Springer knot on the smaller fish and SDjam on the bigger one. Both worked great.

https://youtu.be/f2CaeTFDskY?si=dJJ1DwKegiEUTzjB

The Albie lures are just tuna clones of various colors rigged with Mustad double hooks 7/0. we ran zucchini, Mexican Flag, and Black/Purple.
the lure in the pic is a Nomad MadMac 200mm with a Owner ST66 5/0 Rear Hook.

Congrats again, Christian, and thank you for the detailed reply.
Happy to see you were prepared for the big boys.

Ariel, Christian’s, you two are the SHIT!
Congrats on the amazing fish!!!
Scotty

Hey Christan thank you for a thorough run down of  gear its hard to get answers about gear some times . beautiful fish  congratulations

!!!Getting it done to da max!(macs).  Inspiring!   

No problem guys. I learned a lot from this forum and a lot of ppl in this thread especially. These fish move all over and nothing about them is easy. We called people into the bite before heading out too, which is always fun because watching someone else fight these things is just as cool as doing it yourself.  gotta give love to get love

There are also a ton of gear snobs, but basic stuff gets the job done; my whole 100# outfit cost me 750 including the line being spooled and that is less than the price of some of the reels people are suggesting; sure they're nicer, but not required.. the 80# setups are around 500 but still very capable.. I wouldn't go cheaper or smaller than than a fathom 60/40 though, and the squalls are really not up for these tuna and I've seen a few break at the reel seat. plus you want an achievable max drag of around 40 or 50lbs to stop big fish on big runs...  these fish will heat up so much fighting over time, so getting them in quick and then packing in ice as well as filling the gut cavity with ice after removing all that stuff is critical.  we brought 400lb of ice and 2 6'x3' kill bags and used every bit of it