ESRArecords

EUROPEAN SPEARFISHING RECORDS ASSOCIATION

Thon Jaune

Thon Jaune
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Thon Jaune
Référence : 2022.12.03
EUROPEAN RECORD
Scientific name: Thunnus albacares
Weight: 128,5kg
Diver: Ariel Quintana López
Location: Canary Islands
Country: Spain

On December 3rd my friend Humberto, Borja and I went spearfishing on my friend's boat crestewave captained by my good friend Jack. We left the pier at 10 in the morning heading west, just a few miles from the coast since yellowfin tuna and some bigeyes were seen on several occasions in the previous days. After a few minutes of sailing, the captain sees some birds in the distance with tuna action underneath. So we set course as I finish preparing all the gear. We got to the point and I wait for Captain Jack to tell me to dive. After a few seconds he tells me to jump into the water and as soon as I get in I see a large yellowfin tuna, surrounded by some skipjacks, swimming in my direction. I aim and miss the shot. The captain tells me to get on board so that the bait can swim back underneath the boat and hopefully bring the tuna in again. After a few seconds he attacks the ball again, he tells me to jump again and after a few attacks on the bait I decide to shoot, missing again. But the tuna is still around here circling, we do the maneuver of throwing the bait into the water, hoping it goes under the boat again. I was using my Alemani but decided to switch gears and jumped with a brand new OCHOA speargun that my friend David Ochoa has been working on for the last year. Just as powerful as the Alemanni but more manageable underwater. I jump into the water and I see this beast shortly after but swimming a bit further than the previous times. I decide to dive on top of it and shoot from above. I manage to hit it and the 3atm Riffe float sinks along with the 1.5bar Spearmaster 35ltr. Unfortunately, my string of bad luck continues as I watch this last buoy releasing after going down a few meters. We cannot not believe this! The fish goes straight down with the riffe float and disappears. We get on the boat and wait to see if we if we can spot the float, but nothing… The minutes go by, feeling like hours… And suddenly we see it popping! I jump in quick to find this still very lively fish as the shot was in the back half and it goes down again! We decide to wait for it to die because the shot is in the tail and the fish will end up suffocating. We wait over 1 hour for the fish to get tired and eventually it floats dead on the surface. We finally land the beast and take it on board! We take photos and celebrate! As we weigh it we can see the beast that was 128.5kg and a possible record! yuijuuuu!!!!!
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