7/26/2023 0 Comments Giant tuna fishIf you hook a 200-pound tuna versus a 200-pound shark, the tuna fights 10 times as hard.” He also recalled hooking prize fish, only to have them tow his nearly 29,000-pound boat along at 3 miles per hour like a modern-day Nantucket sleigh ride. It’s pound for pound the strongest fighting fish that you can hook. I kept on them, and it turned into my biggest fishing fantasy come the allure of chasing titanic tuna? The charter boss Colombo explains: “It’s the thrill. Started with bass, went to sharks, then tuna caught my eye last year. The Long Island native told The Post: “I was always into chasing the next biggest thing. Tim Yagnisis, of the fishing vessel FV Margarita, has been pursuing these inshore bluefin for nearly a year. “We had a fish over 100 inches - that’s a 9-foot fish!” exclaimed Colombo. Sizes have also spiked: In early summer, anglers were landing 100-pound fish - a squeaker by bluefin standards - but by August and September they were regularly nabbing 200- to 600-pound bruisers. “By the second week of August, everyone caught onto it, and that’s when you saw, like, 150 boats out” off the Rockaways, Jones Beach and elsewhere, per the fishing guide. Along with other successful hunters, he uploaded photos of his big catch to social media.įrom there, tuna fever spread like wildfire. The Brooklyn native learned of the trend from a buddy who went out in July, “threw three baitfish in the water, and caught, like, a 500-pounder.” After several failed excursions of his own, the former commodities trader finally hooked his virgin bluefin on the Rockaway Reef in August. “You see 200 boats out there and each is hooking a tuna - that’s a legit fishery.” “We’ve never ever caught them like this,” said Colombo, 43, founder of the Brooklyn-based Rockfish Charters. “It’s pound for pound the strongest fighting fish … If you hook a 200-pound tuna versus a 200-pound shark - the tuna fights 10 times as hard.” Veteran fisherman Richard Colombo on the “thrill” of hooking a blue giant rockfishharters/InstagramĪ near 20-year veteran of the New York charter community, Richard Colombo pursued these inshore giants for the first time this summer. Much like with mining suppliers during the gold rush, the tuna craze has proven a boon for NYC charter companies and tackle stores. Julian Walter Colesanti poses with a Brooklyn bluefin. Rockfish Charters captain Kyle Colesanti (left) and fisherman Brandon Locurto outfit a line with a balloon, which helps suspend the heavy rig and enhances visibility. “This year, they came into our waters, settled in - and we targeted them for over three months.” “Boats would catch the occasional ‘ghost,’ which is what we always referred to tuna as because we would see them - jumping and busting on the surface - but never catch them,” Colesanti, who appears on the upcoming Season 11 of National Geographic’s acclaimed fishing show “Wicked Tuna,” told The Post. (That’s bigger than an Alaskan brown bear.) Normally associated with deep waters off New England and elsewhere, supersize specimens surfaced over the summer and fall within view of the Gotham skyline - and hundreds of tuna junkies are scrambling to land an NYC sea monster. The Rockfish Charters boat captain is rigging up a rod so massive, it could’ve been in “Jaws.” He packs his hook with a live baitfish called a bunker, sets the line out to the desired distance - and waits for a behemoth to bite.Ĭolesanti, 29, is one of many NYC anglers targeting the unprecedented glut of trophy Atlantic bluefin tuna, the largest of the 15 species, which can grow to 13 feet long and weigh up to 2,000 pounds. and fisherman Kyle Colesanti is five to 10 miles off the Rockaways in Queens. Many pleasantly shocked line-sinkers told The Post they’ve fished the waters off New York City their entire lives without witnessing a phenomenon like this. ‘Nothing nefarious’ crew that reeled in 600-lb marlin objects to ruling that DQ’d $3.5 million prizeįishermen bag super rare 2,000-pound pregnant ‘devil shark’Ī rare influx of giant tuna - weighing up to 600 pounds - has sparked a bluefin gold rush among Big Apple anglers. North Carolina anglers go swordfishing, instead catch rare species: ‘Prehistoric, almost’įlorida fisherman bitten by shark, pulled overboard in the Everglades: ‘Ah, two seconds won’t do anything’
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