yellowfin tuna
Yellowfin tuna
WORLD-RECORD YELLOWFIN
It is evening at San Benedicto Island, Mexico, October 1989. I am hunting adjacent to a rocky underwater pinnacle, its tip reaching just 10 feet short of the surface, its sides plummeting to the ocean floor 300 feet below. This subsurface rock is a giant fish magnet. Large oceanic predators are attracted by clouds of bait fish seeking both food in the passing currents, and refuge in the pinnacle’ s crevices and caves. It is evening and a glance toward the horizon reveals just a finger’ s width of sky under the rapidly sinking sun. Except for a small area of beautiful penetrating golden light from the sun, the deep blue water is now black.
As I make my way, swimming up-current, schooling hammerhead sharks circle just 50 feet below. I have never seen hammerhead sharks in this schooling mode show any aggression toward a diver, nor have I seen them attack a speared fish. Nevertheless, their presence, along with the darkening water,
heightens my awareness.
This is a wild time of day! Just a few minutes more and nightfall will force me from the water.
The always nervous bait fish are now frantic. Several times a minute I sense distant bait fish being attacked. Their escaping tails, beating as one, emanate an eerie, deeply pitched thundering sound; it strikes me, reverberating in my chest ……
BOOM …… BOOM ………… BOOM.
I know the tuna are near; I feel them close by. Suddenly I hear,“ Tuna!… I’ m on!” I look up to see the crew from our mother boat, the Ambar III, dispatch the chase skiff to aid my fellow diver, heading out to sea, pursuing his disappearing floats.
Once again I dive into the ever darkening water and orient into the current. My heart is pounding. A perfect circle appears at the limit of visibility, now another and another;
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