...is warm-blooded, can swim in bursts to ~45mph, travels intercontinentally, will inhale ten plus pound fish in a single bite, and can be taken within ten miles of land by those salty and lucky enough to get one to jump on a bait?

I give you a fine example of Thunnus thynnus, the mighty giant bluefin tuna. This baby was taken just hours ago by my two buddies with rod and reel. Its initial run was a quarter mile, pulling 45 lbs. of drag. It pulled the boat a mile and a half before they were able to stick it with a harpoon. Too big for the boat, so was dragged in. Weight was 1027 pounds. My boys got a grander. Unfreaking real. Way to go, you fishy bastids!

I still can't believe the quality of the pics. Rrrrr!

dang big guppy! awesome!

Madre de Dios!!!

"We're gonna need a bigger boat!"

day-um! like being hooked up to a VW

I reckon a fish like that is worth a [bleep] of money.

It's all about fat content and the luck of hitting the market (auction) at the right time, but yes, that one fish may very well pay half the season's fuel bill. A grander is on my bucket list. It's a lofty goal, I know. I also know I *will* get one.

A once in a lifetime fish is worth far more than half a seasons fuel bill.....at least it should be.

Not sure if you meant that literally, figuratively or some other '-ly' , but trust me, even for hardened, full-time commercial fishermen, a majestic, awe-inspiring fish like that one are, in their hearts, more than just dollar bills with fins. I know these guys are on cloud 9. I've caught giants with them. It never gets tired for those who love the ocean like some do.

As far as the dollar aspect, however, let me put that into perspective a bit: his fuel bill for the season can run to $40K.

I got a call from Flounder right after the fish got rigged to travel back to the barn. Said Mike was sure it'd go better than 9 bills. The horn will be mounted and will live in a place of honor for years to come. Some day, I'd like to think, some child will ask about it and be sat down and told the story of the fish that his great-grandfather took it from. But then I realize I have a propensity for being something of a romantic, sentimental fool...

"I have a propensity for being something of a romantic, sentimental fool..."

Stay there,...when something works, don't screw with it.

GTC

Note I didn't write, 'old'. Yet.

Domo, tomodachi.

excuse my land locked ignorance but exactly what is a tuna horn??

Outstanding catch!!!!

The 'horn' is the local term for the tail. A giant class tuna, anything from 73" on up, will almost always have a horn that measures 24" across or better. As there are huge fines and other nastiness that can come from killing short fish, sometimes a questionable sized fish--while still alive-- is tailroped and hauled above the waterline and measured, before any bleeding is done. If under 24", you better get a tape out and make sure.

There was no need for a measurement on this guy.

The kind that we need to pursue with gusto - that's what kind!

What size line do they have on their reels ?

+1

Very nice indeed...

I too wish they'd drop $200 bucks so they could take some High Quality shots. Once in a Lifetime deserves better than camera phone pics....

Generally we run 200# mono with a Dacron backer on a Penn International 130. At one point, they were down to 20 feet of backing. That giant had no idea just how close he came to breaking loose. One or two more tail thrusts and he would have been gone. And so it goes in this game. Sometimes ya lose, and sometimes ya don't...

Agree, but no biggie. There'll be others.

Big fish.

Not warm-blooded however.

You might want to look that one up....

I just googled it. Wow, I stand corrected!

I had no idea that any fish are warm blooded. That's really cool.

Damn!!

Nice Sardine

several species of sharks are as well, great whites, makos and salmon sharks come to mind.....warm or cold blooded is a metabolic process and not necessarily dictated by being a "higher animal".....

on a similar weird critter note crocs and alligators are closer to birds than they are to lizards.....they have a 4 chambered heart just like birds and mammals.....proto-crocodilians and proto-dinosaurs(ancestors to birds) were really closely related, the crocodilians didnt take the next step to warm bloodednes.....

crocs remind us of lizards cause only aquatic forms have survived but in the past uprigh "land crocs" that ran like dogs and such were around, fortunately they had a very hard time competing with warm blooded mammals and dinosaurs....

That is one whopper of a tuna
Like Old man and the Sea sized!

For a printer, you post a lot of (correct) biological info!

John

i have stacks and stacks of books.....the wife got mad at me this weekend and told me to clean up my side of the bed which was cluttered with various things i had been reading the last few weeks and had to move a 4 foot stack of books back to the bookshelves....topics range from ethnobotany to orchids to dinosaurs to evolution of large African mammals to rifles of the old west......

also im the local "critter guy" and have been as long as i can remember....have had numerous snake and lizard and other critters....being at the paper has only made it worse, someone doesnt know what something is they bring it to the paper and i identify wierd bugs, plants and anything else someone brings by.....had a 6 inch praying mantis dropped off last week that hung out for awhile till i turned it loose

OH MAN! They had to be in 7th heaven when they got that baby back to shore! Glad nothing chewed on it on the way back.

That's freaking awesome! Man, what a fish.

Those your buddies that have the boat I see in a lot of your fishing pics? It looked like a no nonsense fish killer.

Holy Moly!! Absolutely awesome!! Makes the "legger" king mackerels and bigger wahoos I've caught look like minnows! I didn't know fish like that even existed. And I sure didn't know they were so valuable.

Do they travel in schools? or what?

Thanks for sharing this with us.

I have posted pics of me and tuna on that rig, yes. And yes, it's a no-frills, no-nonsense work boat. If fish don't hit the deck regularly, bills don't get paid. I admire some men that make their living from the sea, but I sure don't envy them. It's a quiet, somber ride coming home when there's not going to be a paycheck; this after spending lots of money to be able to get out and try. One of my buds pictured raises a family of five on what he brings home; he's the sole (ha, ha) breadwinner. For me it's adventure. For some, catching fish or not means the difference between beinbg able to send a kid to college or not...

Yes, tuna are schooling fish, though giants are said to sometimes to be found as lone hunters.

Here are a few pictures of a so-called tuna 'blitz', which is essentially a feeding frenzy of tuna that have surrounded a bait ball and are taking turns slashing into the balled-up bait fish.

And you're most welcome. Thanks for the comments.

I was thinking that such a catch is worth some serious dosh.
Amazing fish.

Leighton, you better get to work fishing, my friend.

leighton,
Remember the series of photos in the old "Salt Water Sportsman" magazine?
It was about a half dozen high speed shots of a giant chasing and catching a bluefish.
I also seen the photos on the wall of a tackle store in Snug Harbor. Cool indeed.

Probably these.

Holy shat!! That's big phookin fish!! Sushi???

But of course.

Fish ought to be touching down in Japan sometime tonight. Pity there couldn't be some identifying mark or something. I'd love to send my brother in law over to Tsukiji to see how much it brings on the auction floor. Might be interesting to have him walk up and tell the guys there that his BIL's buddies caught it on the other side of the world 36 hours prior and see how they react.

Yepper, that's them.
IIRC , those were taken off the cape or BI, long time ago, Thanks.

I have it on fairly good authority that the pics were taken off of Nomans Island. They were taken by Paul Murray, on the Cookie Too, in the 80s.

Nomans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomans_Land_(Massachusetts)

Whopper!!!

Um, around here that'd be 'whoppah!'.

It is every bit of that indeed, no matter the pronounciation.

Thanks.

Got a few better pics today. Big thanks to those who worked on the last ones. After this, one more camera to check in. I really hope for those guys that they get at least one decent shot of them and the whole fish, to frame, for posterity and family. Mikey got an 80" fish today. I'm heading out with them Monday, weather gods permitting.

Gees,..look at that mouth.

What would you say that big blues like that feed on most of the time?

Other critters. Seriously, they're opportunistic and their diet I don't think can be answered in a realistic way in a word or two. IME, based on what I've seen and been told by buddies, they'll eat bluefish, striped bass, 4 flavors of herring, mackerel, eels, cod, butterfish, half-beaks, hake, whiting, pogies, haddock, skates, sand sharks (the 765 from last month had two 3 footers in his belly)...