It was the biggest tuna I had ever seen. Maybe 400 or 500 lbs! it was something from a lost era swimming on by

I jumped in around the North point of Roca Partida and leveled off at around 70 ft. The current was running towards the South so I swam a bit into the blue and lazily drifted with it. I let my gaze go slack, no point of concentration, when a flash from above brought my focus back. I was buzzed by a large school of bonito, maybe 1,000 strong, accompanied by several ono darting about just below them. I was thinking to myself how bonito look like little mini tunas, when the real deal, a proper 200-300 lb yellowfin swam into the mix. I love to see the sharks, the whales, pods of friendly dolphins, mantas and all the other big creatures that call this area home, but what really gets me is the huge schools of fish. Bonitos, rainbow runners, ono, yellowfin tuna….there aren’t many places in the world where you can go and see such great gatherings of fish life on such a regular basis and everytime I’m privileged enough to be apart of such a gathering I’m charged with a feeling of wonderment, much like when you don a mask for the first time and wade out past the shallows or take a breathe underwater for the first time. The previous day Captain Gordon called me to the port bridge wing just in time to see a mammoth yellowfin swimming just feet below the surface right next to the boat. I had no gauge for how much this fish weighed. 400, 500, pounds maybe? It was one of the biggest Ive ever seen. It was like watching a dinosaur, something from a lost era just strut on by. Its the last Socorro trip of the season….and I’m already looking forward to the next one.

By Nautilus Staff

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1 reply on “It was the biggest tuna I had ever seen. Maybe 400 or 500 lbs! it was something from a lost era swimming on by”

Agreed! I too was amazed at the school of very large yellow fin tuna. In fact, they were so large, I asked Ben, what were those very large fish that looked like tuna but had those huge yellow fins… Of course he laughed at me. It’s just that I had never seen them so big before….. 😉

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