Every angler just wants to be able to tell a good fishing story, and this group in New Hampshire has a record-breaking story to tell after hauling in a staggering 1,116-pound bluefin tuna.
A fishing charter was out off the coast of New Hampshire looking to land a big fish, and that they did. Fisherman Brandon McGirl was on board the “Out of Line” fishing boat for an overnight charter with Savage Charters when what seemed like a dud of a fishing trip turned into one those aboard the vessel won’t ever forget.
As the story goes, McGirl and the captain of the charter – Jamie Savage – had almost given up on fishing for the day, and were prepared to head back to Rye Harbor when their reels started to click. After hours of no bites at all, it was clear that they had hooked a rather big fish.
McGirl told WMUR that it was a classic case of the big one coming just as everyone was giving up hope:
“They never come when you expect them to come. But when it does happen, you almost feel like your heart kind of skips a beat just a little bit.”
And I’d say there were more than just a couple of skips, because it quickly became evident that they had a monster of a fish on the line.
A bluefin tuna had been hooked, and the “Out of Line” chased the fish for just shy of a mile. The fight the tuna was putting up let them know it was a beast, but they never imagined how big it was. Captain Jamie Savage of Savage Charters says it was only when they started to lift it out of the water that they realized they might have a record-breaker:
“We lifted it out of the water and immediately knew it was way bigger than what we thought and bigger than anything neither of us had seen before.”
Sure enough, the bluefin tuna weighed in at a whopping 1,116 pounds. That easily surpassed the previous record that was set in 2013, when an angler brought in a 962 pounder. This catch bested that one by 154 pounds.
Unreal.
Like I said, it’s a story that McGirl will be able to tell for the rest of time. The fisherman said hauling in a 1,000-pound fish has always been a goal, but he never imagined he’d actually do it:
“If you tuna fish for long time, to catch a 1,000-pound fish, is, I mean, it’s something that you dream of. Similar to how you would pick out a steak, you are looking for marbling in the meat, so all the marbling like a wagyu or a ribeye, and this has marbling all over it.”
An absolute dream of a bluefin tuna.
While the fish is now heading off to market (and may even be sent as far as Japan), the tail of the tuna will remain at Rye Harbor. There it will rest as a trophy, and a reminder of the now record-holding bluefin tuna.
