The arrival of rare giant Pacific bluefin tuna off Half Moon Bay has turned the world of fishing upside down. Tuna ranging over 150 pounds in large schools have arrived as close as 3 miles from Pillar Point Harbor.
“We are walking on clouds, what we’re getting to experience,” said Doug Laughlin of the Coastside Fishing Club. About 30 to 35 tuna have been caught in the past week, Laughlin said, and far more have been lost as anglers scramble to figure out how to hook, fight and land the giant and elusive prize.
In the past 50 years, anglers have caught Pacific bluefin tuna in a handful of encounters out of Bay Area harbors. These were often aberrations where the tuna were mixed in with schools of albacore in the fall, often at distances 30 to 100 miles offshore.
The bluefin tuna arrived late last week near the Deep Reef, 10 miles out in Half Moon Bay, where anglers told stories of enormous fish, long fights and even losing 600 yards of line.
“Unbelievable how close they are, unbelievable how big they are,” said Charlie Claycomb Jr., who with his fishing pal Fred Wilson, caught two in a single trip in fights that lasted up to 2 ½ hours with fish 5 feet long weighing around 150 pounds each.
Anglers like to say hooking a big tuna is like standing on an overpass with a fishing rod, letting the line down and snagging a passing semi truck.
Pacific bluefin tuna are best known for ranging the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean, where they migrate thousands of miles off San Diego and Baja California and westward to Hawaii and beyond, according to NOAA Fisheries, which reports on the status of U.S. fisheries. They are prized on the commercial market for their rich, tender red meat, which sells at premium prices at sushi markets and in Japan. They are mature at 5 years of age, and while most range 60 to 80 pounds, they can get far heavier, and out of San Diego, sport-fishing operations recognize a “300-pound Club.”
Pacific bluefin are not endangered, but NOAA recognizes them as a species that has been overfished by commercial interests, and their stock assessment shows a slight improvement in recent years.
Most believe the tuna have been drawn in by vast schools of juvenile anchovies that have also attracted large numbers of humpback whales and shorebirds to the area, said Tom Mattusch, captain of the Huli Cat, a sport fishing charter boat operating out of Pillar Point Harbor.
“I’ve never heard of anything like this,” Mattusch said. “Bluefin are jumping all over, chasing the bait (anchovies). There’s so much food in the ocean. Whales all over the place, there’s lots of birds and the squid guys are happy.”
On his boat, five experienced anglers took turns fighting a 5-foot bluefin.
“That tuna tired out all five guys and we went through the rotation again before we landed it,” Mattusch said.
Catching bluefin tuna requires specialized trolling skills where anglers run their boats at 5 and 6 mph, trailing giant skirted jigs and other lures, often far behind their boats. With rod and reel, a fight can last hours. At the boat, landing a big tuna can require two gaffs, which are large hooks set on a wood rod, plus a rope around the tuna’s tail, and three people to haul it in.
The catch is divided among those aboard.
Claycomb Jr. and Wilson chased the big bluefins for years out of San Diego without success, and then last week, caught a pair in their near their homes in Montara. The first required an hour to land, he said, the second about 2 ½ hours.
“After an hour and a half, we’d get 5 or 6 yards of line, and the big tuna would then just take it right back,” Claycomb Jr. said. “He walked me around the boat eight times, a marathon. I’m still sore. I was so tired.”
With the rich feed conditions, anything might be possible, Claycomb Jr. said.
“At first, this feels like a once-in-a-lifetime deal,” Claycomb Jr. said. “But there’s a chance they will like it here with all the feed and stick around, and maybe come back next year, too. All the planets are definitely aligned.”
In April, pockets of bluefin tuna were verified on the central California coast near San Simeon, and then two weeks ago, they showed up off Monterey. In a post with the Coastside Fishing Club, Don Puccinelli and sons Tony and Joey reported they trolled off Point Pinos and hooked up with three bluefin tuna at once, known as a “tripleheader.” One of the tuna spooled off 600 yards of line and was lost, and the two other fights ended with fish that weighed 169 and 141 pounds, they wrote.
Out of Pillar Point Harbor, before the wind kicked up early this week and a full moon arrived on Monday, even kayak anglers were out, Mattusch said. Kayakers call hooking up with a big tuna “the ultimate sleigh ride.”
Tom Stienstra is The Chronicle’s outdoor writer. Email: tstienstra@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @StienstraTom
The Link LonkAugust 05, 2020 at 06:30AM
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Rare, giant bluefin tuna off Half Moon Bay have turned the fishing world upside down - San Francisco Chronicle
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