873 lb Bluefin Caught off Delaware - Virginia Beach Sport Fishing

Virginia Beach Sport Fishing: 873 lb Bluefin Caught off Delaware - Virginia Beach Sport Fishing

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873 lb Bluefin Caught off Delaware Sorry - see it was posted earlier

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Posted 09 July 2005 - 09:35 AM


http://www.dnrec.sta...1.asp?PRID=1724

Record Tuna Caught Off Delaware Shore
It was a fish for the Delaware record books. The largest tuna on Delaware record, a massive 873 lb. blue fin, was caught on Saturday by the charter boat, Captain Ike II, about 40 miles off-shore from the Indian River Inlet.

According to the boat’s captain, Dave Collins of Frankford, the tuna was caught by Dan Dillon or Herndon, VA with an 80 lb. test monofilament line on an 80 lb. class reel, using a blue fish fillet as bait. “The tuna was so huge that it more than 1 ½ hours to reel the tuna to the boat and another 2 more hours to haul it into the boat,” said Captain Collins. “All six men on the fishing charter were needed to haul the fish onto the deck,” he said.

The blue fin tuna was weighed at the Hook’em and Cook’em weigh-in station located at the Indian River Marina. Aaron Hurd of DNREC’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, officially identified and recorded the weight of the giant blue fin tuna at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 2.

“We couldn’t believe our eyes,” said Mr. Hurd. “The tuna was 9 ½ feet in length with a girth of 6 ½ feet. Its total weight of 873 lbs. exceeded the previous record catch by more than 500 lbs.

The holiday weekend brought serious fishing enthusiasts from across the region eager to “bag” the largest fish in the Delaware Open Tuna Trolling Tournament. The annual July 4th weekend event is sponsored by the Indian River Boating Association (IRBA), which holds several fishing tournaments throughout the season.

“The Captain Ike II was out on an overnight shark-fishing trip and wasn’t registered in our three-day tournament,” said Don Cline, President of the IRBA. “Blue fin tuna caught off Delaware with rod and reel usually range from 35 to 200 lbs. This year’s tournament winner weighed in at 120.6 lbs, so it amazed everyone to see this monster of a fish,” he said.

“This weekend’s tournament was a great success with anglers bringing in a large catch of blue and yellow fin tuna, shark, flounder, and sea bass,” said Gary King, marina manager with DNREC’s Division of Parks and Recreation. “Delaware offers some of the finest deep-sea fishing on the East coast, and we expect this season to be a great one,” he said.

For more information regarding upcoming IRBA fishing tournaments, contact the Indian River Marina at (302) 227-3071. To learn about the Indian River Marina at the Delaware Seashore State Park, visit their web site at www.destateparks.com/marina/index.asp.

For further information or for digital pictures, contact Melanie Rapp DNREC Public Affairs Office (302) 739-9902 or Maria Taylor by cell phone (302) 632-1078.
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#2 Guest_Donna Sea_*

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Posted 09 July 2005 - 03:25 PM

Last friday night a guy from Northern Virginia was shark fishing on a charter out of Delaware and caught a 873 lb Bluefin using Bluefish as bait. He beat the existing Delaware record for Bluefin by 500 lbs. There is an article and photo in the Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com

Do a search on record tuna.
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#3 Guest_Donna Sea_*

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Posted 11 July 2005 - 11:16 AM

After reading this, my wife said "I feel her pain"

It's Tuna Around the Clock For Herndon Man's Family
By Ann Gerhart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 9, 2005; A01
When a man lands a big fish, the tale is told of fight and peril, exhaustion and triumph. The beast is weighed, the record inscribed, the photo taken, bragging rights secured. And that is where the story usually ends.
There's Dan Dillon, back at the Indian River Marina near Bethany Beach, standing behind the biggest bluefin tuna ever caught off the coast of Delaware -- 873 pounds, 9 feet 7 inches long, more than six feet in girth. What a picture.
Now here is Claire Dillon. She's Dan's wife. She stays down at the shore until Wednesday, after Dan goes back to work, and when she gets home to Herndon, the entire house smells of raw fish. She follows her nose. She opens the refrigerator.
"He had put a couple of bags of tuna in the refrigerator to thaw, and being the total man," Claire says, "he sticks them in there, right on the shelf, and this fish blood has leaked out, all over the bottom of the refrigerator, and down over the drain, and all over the floor under the refrigerator."
She tells herself to laugh as she moves the refrigerator away from the wall to clean up the blood, and thinks: "Here we go with all the fish." Dan lights lots of scented candles.
So you catch a trophy of a fish, get lots of publicity, and then what?
A power saw is involved. "And monster knives," says Dan, 39, who watched on the dock last Saturday while three men took three hours to butcher the massive fish. When the job was done, there was more than 500 pounds -- dozens of huge plastic bags of tuna, cut into steaks the size of dinner plates.
Giant bluefin tuna, whose fatty bellies are prized for buttery toro sushi, are the Powerballs of commercial fishing. They can fetch a fisherman $6 to $20 a pound. Because the tuna is the most muscular fish in the water, with a small body cavity, 80 percent of it is edible. If the Dillons could have flown that baby straight to Japan, where the fish is most prized, they might have netted $12,800. But the charter boat captain who took Dillon and three friends out to fish for shark doesn't have a federal permit to sell bluefin, nor do most charter operators in the mid-Atlantic.
Since Dillon couldn't sell it, he would have to eat it.
"It's pretty amazing when you think about the challenge of getting rid of all that fish," says Dan.
The tuna was divided evenly among Dillon, his friends and the captain and mate, and still Dillon had two very larger coolers filled with 100 pounds of fish. He went back to his parents' beach house on Fenwick Island, and the whole extended family of 20 ate grilled tuna that night. He gave some away. He put more in his folks' freezer.
"I'm one of eight kids, so I said to my siblings, 'Here's a bag of fish -- have fun,' " Dan says. "I love fish, but you can't eat tuna morning, noon and night."
Back home in Herndon, there was still so much tuna it filled the family freezer and the freezer in their second refrigerator.
Says Claire, 38, who has been married to Dan for 14 years: "Another male thing -- 'Let's have a party and invite every single person we've ever met!' "
Tonight's the big tuna grill at their house. They're expecting more than 100 people.
Yesterday, Claire was deep in fish logistics. She had cleared out the refrigerator and moved all the tuna onto shelves to thaw, gone to Costco and bought plates and cutlery, potato salad and other side dishes, and hamburgers and hot dogs for anybody already sick of tuna. (The Dillon girls, 7 and 9, will eat it; the boy, 11, mostly likes Cocoa Puffs.)
"Oh, and huge aluminum pans," says Claire, to hold the three sauces and rubs she's making -- blackened, teriyaki and a tomato-based barbecue -- and the 40 or 50 pounds of tuna they still have left.
"I was supposed to go out with a girlfriend," Claire says, "and I had to tell her, 'I have to stay home and marinate fish tonight.' "
The bluefin tuna is the strongest fighter in the ocean, capable of swimming as fast as 50 miles per hour, diving to the bottom of the ocean and taking its hunter overboard. All the big game fish magazines say so.
No one prepares a man, or his wife, for the fight that sucker can still put up from the freezer.
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