For three days, Danthony Winslow and Lathan Price had been, as they call it, “tuna wishing.” They’d been drifting live bait for bluefin tuna off the coast of North Carolina, facing sub-freezing cold in an open 23-foot skiff in the Atlantic, which at least had been mercifully calm most of the time.
“We’d been out there three days and didn’t get a sniff,” said Winslow, a 22-year-old commercial fisherman from Morehead City, North Carolina. “And we’d frozen our butts off.” They needed to break the spell, so on the fourth day they did something a little different. “We brought along a Mr. Buddy propane heater,” Winslow said with a laugh. “In an open boat, it wasn’t much.”
Price, a 21-year-old whose primary gig is as a charter captain, agreed. “At least it knocked the chill off,” he said. The pair, friends since middle school, were huddled around the heater when something else happened that made them forget about the cold. They finally got a bite.
Bluefin Tuna from a Skiff
More than five hours later, the men finally had the fish aboard — and it was nearly half as long as the boat. The 115-inch bluefin would core out at 700 pounds — not a record, but an amazing catch from a small boat.
Price and Winslow are both from fishing families. Price is a captain with Legacy Fishing Charters out of Morehead City. His uncle Eric Price runs the Offshore Outlaw, which has been featured on “Wicked Tuna.” Most of Winslow’s commercial fishing centers on multi-day bottom-fishing trips.
When tuna season opened on Dec. 1, that became their focus. They really hoped they could get it done on Price’s 23-foot Riddick Bayrunner flat-bottom skiff.
“The tuna come in really shallow here,” Winslow said. “We were fishing what we call the ‘Shoals’ off Cape Lookout in about 50 to 60 feet of water. We could see the Lookout lighthouse where we were.”
They were live-lining 3- to 5-pound live bluefish — which they’d caught the night before — on 14/O Owner live bait hooks. “We were out there with about 10 other boats,” Price said.
Fishing had turned on and several boats had hooked up, including Price’s uncle, Eric. “We saw some birds and started making our way over toward them,” Winslow said. Then, boom! The tuna took off on its expected long and fast run.
Fighting a Giant Bluefin from a Small Boat
“They just smoke the reel,” said Price, who was using a Penn International 80-wide spooled with a combination of 200-pound braid, a top shot of 200-pound mono, and a 200-pound fluorocarbon leader. “This one was a solid run of 400 to 500 yards.”
After getting the boat turned and closing some distance, it was time to go to work. “It took us probably an hour just to get him close,” Price said. The pair traded turns on the rod, which was secured in a bow-mounted swivel rod holder. After a few hours the tuna finally showed itself.
“It came up and was just paddling on the surface,” Price said. “Then I knew what we were into.”
Eventually they got the fish to the boat, but it wasn’t over. “You still lose a lot of them when they get close,” Price said. “It gets hectic.”
The men were able to secure the tuna with a harpoon and tail rope. The next challenge? Getting the fish into the boat, which GPS showed had traveled more than 12 miles during the fight.
Fortunately, Eric Price was on site in his boat and more than happy to help his nephew. After marrying up to the younger Price’s skiff, Eric Price and his two crew came aboard. Together the five men were able to get the tuna aboard the skiff. At the dock, the tuna measured 115 inches, fork-length and weighed exactly 700 pounds after being cored (head and entrails removed).
A Bluefin Tuna Payday
Lathan Price’s previous biggest tuna was a 658-pounder caught while fishing with his uncle. Winslow said he doesn’t know a bigger bluefin in his family’s long fishing history.
At the dock the pair made a deal with a broker. It will be a couple of weeks before they find out how much the tuna will bring at market. It could be $10 or more a pound.
As they wait for their payday, Price and Winslow haven’t been loafing. Every day that weather allows, they are out looking for another big tuna. They haven’t had another bite in the days after their catch, but it doesn’t sting quite so much. “It will be a not-so-cold winter now,” Price said with a laugh.
