It felt great going back to start chumming again having released a fish so soon. The weather was great and once we started marking the bait we started chumming again. We made a few drifts on The Ridge before tuna came back to the chum. We selectively served baits to the fish trying to give the bait to the big fish in the chum. I pulled it away from a few and once a big one took the bait we let it eat the bait. The fight went smooth and this fish really pulled. AJ chased the fish down and Rob put good pressure on the fish. The fish neared and I got the wire the first time. To add to the drama when I let go of the leader the first time I burned a little glove mark on the leader that we had to watch for 10 more minutes as it went up and down right at the boat. I got the leader the second time and was able to finish the fish off. It made some nice circles on the leader and popped its head out of theater one time about half way up. I really didn’t want that but was able to settled the fish down once it dove back down. We got good measurements of the fish and the consensus was that the fish would be over 900. AJ called the fish 950.With a 10 foot short measurement it was long enough. The pictures we took sure don’t give the fish justice. Fishing on the lobster style boats it is really hard to get good pictures of the fish. They would have looked huge next to our 37 Merritt.When we were face to face with the fish they were so big it was incredible. Peter B Wright and I got one 971 pounds in the Bahamas that looked huge to me when we got it.I remember it was really hard to judge the size of that fish until it went to the scales as it is every time I weigh a fish of that size. The release was awesome the fish
was magnificent and made our trip.
