Early Autumn Surprise - 100 Pound Wahoo!

We were heading out to the Bacardi wreck off of Long Island to get in on the yellow fin action when Frank stopped the boat and said that he saw swirls in the water. I decided to change tactics and change over from spreader bars to individual lures. The first one I put out was a 6″ purple Zucker that I put back about 150’on the port side.

I moved over to the starboard side and started putting out the second lure of my spread – a 6 inch soft head green and yellow skirt. I didn’t get it 50 feet out when BOOM – the first rod started singing!

I yelled for my nephew Chris to wake up and get on the rod. He picked it up and I began quickly strapping on his gimbal belt. Twenty minutes into the fight he yelled “color!”.

I grabbed my favorite trusty 3 foot gaff and ran to the stern to get a look down.

When I was able to identify the fish, I yelled “WAHOO!”.

Chris is a beginner and he never heard of a fish called Wahoo. He thought I was just yelling “yahoo” and started hooting and hollering. I informed him that it was a Wahoo, a tropical fish from down south and an incidental catch up here.

After getting a good enough look at the size, I yelled “it’s a Huge one too!”.

I gaffed it and struggled to lift it over the gunnel myself but it was too heavy so I yelled for help. Frank grabbed a second gaff and helped me lift it over and into the boat.

Once it was on the deck I started cracking up laughing. Frank said what’s so funny. I said with all the excitement. I forgot the boat has a huge tuna door.

We measured the wahoo at 72 inches and back at the dock the surprise catch weighed in at 89.9 pounds cleaned. We estimated the original weight to have been 100 over pounds!