Capt. Eddie Brown had a three-man crew looking for tuna on the morning of Jan. 16 as they departed the mouth of the Mississippi River from Venice, Louisiana, to the Gulf.
“We found a bunch of birds and baitfish, and big yellowfins were working them over,” says Brown, a 47-year-old charter captain from New Jersey who guides down South in the winter. “We caught a couple big fish, a 165-pounder, and a 207-pound tuna.”
One of Brown’s clients, Jeff Tomaloff, cast a clear Madd Mantis topwater popper toward the birds. He was using a heavy-duty Zack’s Custom 7-foot spinning rod and a reel spooled with 80-pound test Cortland braided line, and chugged the lure a few times on the surface. At 9 a.m., says Brown, Tomaloff got a crushing strike from a big yellowfin.
“A strike from a big tuna on a chugger plug with braided line is so bone-jarring it can crack your toenails. But Tomaloff is from Florida, and those guys know how to fight fish. He got it near the boat to gaff in only 15 minutes.”
Normally, Brown would have harpooned Tomaloff’s fish, but it had gone overboard that morning.
“I’m glad I lost my harpoon when boating the 207-pounder earlier,” said Brown. “Because if I’d used it on the big tuna, it wouldn’t have qualified as a record catch.”
Brown said the crew didn’t realize how big Tomaloff’s fish was until they gaffed it.
“It was so big around it was unreal. He beat the fish really quick ‘cause he knows how to fight em with stand-up tackle.
“The big one didn’t fight nearly as hard as the smaller tuna. It may have been a tired, old fish.”
The anglers headed back to Venice with three giant tuna aboard. They were weighed at Cypress Cove Marina on certified scales.
“All the paperwork and information on Tomaloff’s tuna are being submitted now for state record recognition,” says Brown.
The current Louisiana record yellowfin tuna is a 251-pounder caught in 2012 by Elliot Sale. If confirmed, Tomaloff’s 256.2 pound tuna should easily qualify as the new record.
“We were lucky, too, because we had a double header hooked when Tomaloff’s has his big fish on,” Brown says. “I was worried the two fish would tangle. But fortunately, the hooks pulled on one tuna, and Tomaloff was able to boat his record fish.”