Some people take a personal day to run errands, tackle projects around the house or simply relax.
Three Marblehead friends took Thursday morning off and went fishing.
They came home with a 600–700-pound bluefin tuna.
Kris Meola, Michael Karadamos and Graham Foster headed to the northeast corner of Stellwagen Bank aboard Meola’s 33-foot Boston whaler, Fallline, hoping to take advantage of the reopened giant bluefin tuna fishery.
What followed was a roughly 45-minute battle with a fish measuring 103 inches — 8 feet, 7 inches — long.
“This one’s probably, I would say, between 600 and 700 pounds,” Meola said after the trio returned to Marblehead Harbor with the massive fish filling much of the back of the boat.
The men aren’t full-time fishermen. Meola has a commercial fishing license, however, which allows the catch to be sold.
The men knew they had hooked a giant right away.
“You don’t even touch it in the beginning,” Karadamos said. “You just let the fish run.”
Eventually, the men began working it toward the boat, taking turns on the rod during the physically demanding fight.
Once the tuna was close enough, they used a harpoon and then secured it with a tail rope. But landing the fish presented another problem: It was simply too big for the three men to haul aboard.
They needed another boat to help and used a block and tackle to lift the giant bluefin onto Fall Line.
Once aboard, the fish was packed with ice to preserve the meat.
Bluefin tuna caught commercially must measure at least 73 inches. Thursday’s fish was 30 inches longer than that minimum.
Meola said tuna weighing more than 500 pounds are much less common than smaller legal-sized fish, although this wasn’t his first encounter with one. He caught a roughly 700-pound tuna last year, also at Stellwagen Bank.
Thursday’s catch was sold to North Atlantic Traders, which came to State Street Landing and used a crane to get the tuna off the Fallline. It’ll be officially weighed at North Atlantic. Meola estimates it will earn $5 to $6 per pound.
It may also bring them something else: bragging rights.
Karademos entered the fish into the Maddie’s Anglers fishing tournament, just before the month-long contest’s deadline.
For the three friends, however, Thursday’s adventure had one final deadline that even a 600-pound bluefin couldn’t change.
They had to get back to Marblehead.
“We have to be back in time to pick up our kids at school,” Meola laughed.
