Tag: sportfishing

Catfish anglers are shattering records in Georgia

Catfish anglers in Georgia are enjoying a remarkable season as three records have fallen during the past month.

Catfish anglers in Georgia are enjoying a remarkable season as three records have fallen during the past month.

Most notable was the Oct. 17 catch of a 110-pound, 6-ounce blue catfish on the Chattahoochee River, by a visiting angler from Florida.

Tim Trone’s catch – his goal had been merely to land his first 50-pound catfish – shattered the state record by more than 17 pounds.

Tim Trone with Georgia state-record blue catfish

“The tail comes out the water and all I thought was, ‘Man, I got my 50-pound fish. I’ve got the 50-pounder,’ ” Trone told Fox 8 News.

RELATED: Rare catch of ‘super cow’ tuna could have been worth big bucks

On Oct. 27, Aaron Churchwell, a veteran catfish angler from Rome, Ga., landed a 52-pound, 1-ounce blue catfish on Allatoona Lake in northwestern Georgia.

That smashed a lake record (44 pounds) set on Oct. 10.

Aaron Churchwell with Allatoona Lake-record blue catfish

Churchwell was targeting flathead catfish with live shad, but that wasn’t working so he caught a small channel catfish and used a hunk of its flesh to entice the giant blue catfish.

“I’ve fished Allatoona for about four years now, and there’s one little area on the lake that holds big fish, but they are not easy to catch,” Churchwell told Gon.com. “We mark them there all the time, but you just can’t get them to eat. We were drifting through, and every time we’d drift across it, we would catch one a little bigger.”

Arturo Media with 44-pound blue catfish

The record-setting catfish was kept in a live well overnight and weighed the next day. A state biologist certified the weight before Churchwell released the fish.

The 44-pound blue catfish was caught on live shad by Arturo Medina, who had been fishing for striped bass. The catch narrowly broke the Allatoona Lake record set in 2017.

Medina, who also released his fish, held the record for 17 days.

–Images show Aaron Churchwell (first and third), Tim Trone (second) and Arturo Medina with their giant blue catfish catches

Fisherman catches rare ‘super cow’ using a balloon

A fisherman caught a rare and record-size 364.5-pound bluefin tuna off Southern California on a charter boat using a unique technique.

Fishermen seeking to catch a fish of a lifetime or personal best on a charter boat off Orange County, Calif., appeared to hit the jackpot last week, especially Adonis Soriano, who landed a record-size 364.5-pound bluefin tuna—known as a super cow in sportfishing lingo.

Adonis Soriano, right, with his 364.5-pound bluefin tuna, along with deckhand.

A super cow is one that weighs 300 pounds or more, and it is rare to catch one off Southern California as fishermen there typically take long-range trips from San Diego well into Mexican waters to catch these behemoths.

Soriano’s catch would have shattered the California state record had he not used the rail for leverage. Also, it wasn’t weighed on a certified scale but taped out at 81 inches in length with a 61-inch girth, thus producing the estimated weight.

The state record is 245 pounds caught in 2016, or about when big bluefin tuna started showing up in Southern California waters. As it was, Soriano’s catch was a record among the Newport Beach sportfishing fleet.

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Soriano was one of 18 anglers aboard the Thunderbird out of Davey’s Locker in Newport Beach that fished on a two-day trip behind San Clemente Island, and they caught loads of big bluefin tuna.

Charter master Jeff Price told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors that all the anglers were going after the fish of a lifetime or personal record, and several succeeded. They totaled 65 bluefin tuna with seven of them weighing over 100 pounds, four over 200 pounds (known as a cow), and the one over 300.

Adonis Soriano with his 364.5-pound bluefin tuna.

“We use 200-pound test and dangle a flying fish from a helium balloon to catch these monsters,” Price told For The Win Outdoors, describing a method that gets a bait dangling on the surface away from the boat. “On this trip, we saw literally thousands of fish jumping out of the water feeding on small anchovies, although there are so many fish, they’re not easy to get to bite your bait. When they’re feeding on the small anchovies and Shelbys that’s usually all they want so you need to be very lucky for them to bite your bait.”

Then there were several lucky anglers, Soriano among the luckiest.

“The 364.5-pound bluefin took just under one hour to land,” Price said. “The fight was intense. He peeled off hundreds of feet of line on his first run. The large fishing reel was actually very warm from all of the tension.

“He laid the rod on the rail and put one knee down on the deck and started cranking the handle as hard as he could. It gets to be exhausting, but the longer you have the fish on, the higher the chance you will lose it. He did an excellent job landing this fish.”

Soriano told For The Win Outdoors the fight was “intense” and “like no other fight I had fought before.”

“[The fish took] long runs that almost took all the line off my reel,” Soriano said.

It wasn’t the only fish he caught; he landed another in the 35-40-pound range. The other was his biggest ever, surpassing a 90-pounder he had caught previously.”

Photos courtesy of Davey’s Locker and Adonis Soriano.

 

4-year-old angler channels Spider-Man, lands first dorado

Stories of epic battles with marlin and tuna abound in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, but a recent fishing report noted that a 4-year-old local kid caught his first dorado.

Stories of epic battles with marlin and tuna abound in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, but a recent fishing report noted that a 4-year-old boy caught his first dorado.

Quite a feat for Mischa Ehrenberg, whose Spiderman costume undoubtedly helped him gather the strength required to reel in one of the region’s most popular and scrappy game fish.

But Mischa’s story is perhaps more noteworthy because he caught the fish 27 years after his mom, Rebecca, reeled in her first Dorado – also as a 4-year-old.

Mischa Ehrenberg and his mom, Rebecca, with their first dorado, caught as 4-year-olds. Photo: Pisces Sportfishing

The Ehrenbergs, who founded Pisces Sportfishing 42 years ago, announced the catch Monday on Facebook, describing the family outing as a “Special day for our little Spider-Man!”

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Mischa was on the yacht Karina with his mom and grandpa, and the crew. “He reeled it in completely by himself,” Rebecca told For The Win Outdoors. “Such a little trooper.”

One of the accompanying images shows Mischa displaying his catch, made last Saturday, and Rebecca posing with hers in 1993.

Dorado, loosely translated as “golden one,” are immensely popular among Cabo San Lucas anglers because of their acrobatics on the hook, and their delicate white flesh. (Dorado are referred to as mahi-mahi in Hawaii.)

Rebecca noted that she was equally proud of her son when he reeled in his first marlin as a 3-year-old.

The Facebook post states: “We get a few people asking if fishing is appropriate for the little [ones]. We think taking them fishing is one of the best things you can do for them; learning and creating memories that last a lifetime.”

Rebecca said that Mischa, understandably, napped on the way back to port.

‘Monster’ tuna leaves anglers exhausted, captain injured

Giant bluefin tuna do not come up easily, and that certainly proved true Tuesday for a group of anglers off San Diego.

Giant bluefin tuna do not come up easily, and that certainly proved true Tuesday for a group of anglers off San Diego.

The Mad Max Sportfishing charter teamed to land a 345-pound bluefin, but the two-hour fight left the anglers exhausted and the captain with a separated shoulder.

“It was a group effort to land this monster fish and everyone took a turn fighting it,” Capt. Max Dennemeyer told For The Win Outdoors. “I ended up taking over toward the end to get this fish to leader, as the clients were out of energy and it required my experience to apply enough pressure to bring the  fish to leader, where I could grab the leader with one hand and gaff the fish with the other.”

During this process, Dennemeyer’s right shoulder became separated.

“It was excruciatingly painful, but luckily I was able to stay focused enough to order one of my clients to grab my arm and yank on it as hard as possible to pop it back in, which ended up working on the second try.”

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While bluefin tuna can be enormous, it’s rare to catch the true giants on rod and reel because they possess so much power and determination. The 345-pounder was a personal best for Dennemeyer and his passengers.

The accompanying Instagram video shows the weigh-in at the San Diego Marlin Club.

Dennemeyer said the group was fishing 80 miles west of San Diego and was trolling frozen flying fish “that we rig up to look as natural as possible” to entice the massive bluefin.

The fish was delivered to a local processing company and the sashimi-grade flesh was divided equally among the anglers.

–Images and video courtesy of Mad Max Sportfishing

Rainbow trout comes up blue in rare Lake Superior catch

Tanner Hrycyk is new to fishing Lake Superior, so when he landed a blue trout recently he figured there was nothing special about the catch.

Tanner Hrycyk is new to fishing Lake Superior, so when the 19-year-old reeled up a blue trout recently, he figured there was nothing special about the catch.

“At first I thought it was just a normal rainbow trout from Lake Superior,” Hrycyk told For The Win Outdoors. “But then we did some research and found out it wasn’t your average rainbow.”

The 27-inch fish turned out to be a hatchery-raised rainbow trout with a genetic mutation, giving it a sleek, bluish appearance.

While the Aug. 30 catch can be considered rare, “odd” color variations of fish raised in Great Lakes hatcheries are “not as abnormal as you might think,” said Ed Eisch, Fish Production Program Manager for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

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Eisch told For The Win Outdoors that the agency used to rear Arlee and Shasta strains of rainbow trout and “a noticeable number of fish had a bluish tinge to their skin color.”

The biologist added: “There are all sorts of genetic variations, including skin color, that occur in both wild and hatchery reared fish. In some instances, such mutations allow for better survival in localized populations if conditions favor the mutation. That mechanism allows for local adaptations to occur to increase survival.

“Most often, though, genetic mutations that occur in the wild make fish less fit to survive beyond the very early life stages. Hatchery fish are not subject to the same pressures of natural selection as wild fish are, so fish with mutations may survive longer than they would in the wild.”

Hrycyk, who lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario, was fishing with a friend on Black Bay when the blue trout struck his Tail Dancer lure.

He kept the trout but said that in hindsight, after realizing that it was a special catch, he wishes that he would have returned the fish to the lake.

–Images are courtesy of Tanner Hrycyk

Rare tuna catch from shore attracts ‘pack of giant roosters’

Theo Anest accomplished a rare feat recently by landing a yellowfin tuna from shore, while using spinning gear, on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.

Theo Anest accomplished a rare feat recently by landing a yellowfin tuna from shore, while using spinning gear, on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.

But as Anest reeled the 37-pound tuna toward the beach, another remarkable event occurred: Several massive roosterfish, seemingly attracted by the commotion, accompanied the hooked tuna into the surf zone.

This placed them within fly-casting range and before long, local guide Lance Peterson was battling an estimated 80-pound roosterfish on a fly rod.

Images show Theo Anest (left) and Lance Peterson with their tuna and roosterfish. Credit: Theo Anest

“The tuna was spotted and specifically cast to,” Peterson, owner of Lance Peterson Fishing, told For The Win Outdoors. “I was hoping a few of its buddies would swim in for a look as it neared the beach, and sure enough there were some curious onlookers; mostly giant roosters.”

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The catches were made early last month in Baja California Sur’s East Cape region. But photos were not shared until last week, with Peterson describing the event on Facebook as “a truly rare double hookup from shore.”

Catching yellowfin tuna from shore is not unheard of, but it’s rare considering that the pelagic fish are generally found in schools several miles offshore.

Roosterfish, however, are a coastal species prized by East Cape anglers because of their exotic appearance, size and power. Anglers typically release their catches to preserve the vulnerable fishery.

Peterson was searching for roosterfish when he  spotted the yellowfin tuna feeding on forage fish. He texted Anest and told him to bring spinning gear.

Anest, a sales representative for Scott Fly Rods, arrived with a long spinning rod and cast a silver metal lure toward the tuna.

“They never quite came into fly range but we could see waves of them passing through an area 40 to 100 yards off the beach,” Anest recalled. “As soon as I hooked the tuna, 100 curious grande roosters that were lurking in the vicinity followed that tuna in.

“However, when Lance made that cast we were still certain they were all tuna until about 20 giant combs [roosterfish dorsal fins] came out of the water.”

Added Peterson: “We had sighted several tuna that day, but they were lock-jawed. Eventually Theo stuck one. The commotion brought in several fish to investigate, among them a pack of giant roosters.

“I was convinced I had managed to hook the smallest specimen in the group, which makes me wonder how big the others were!”

Anest kept the tuna, while Peterson released the roosterfish after posing for a quick series of images.

Any roosterfish over 50 pounds is considered a prize catch, especially on a fly rod. The all-tackle world record – a 114-pound roosterfish caught off La Paz, north of the East Cape – has stood since 1960.

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