300LB Yellowfin Tuna Gone: ARGHHHHH. In Bali???

Intro

Okay, this has nothing to do with anything at all, but this is a travel blog that often has nothing to do with anything at all. It's more just my thoughts, and I am pissed off to a fault. Why? Because of fishing...

You love it, but it drives you up a wall 😅.

So Here's What Happened

Travel? That's my life. But fishing? That is my mission. You can strand me on a beach on a remote island in the Comoros, and you wouldn't hear me complain for 10 years, since I would be fishing blues every day.

So, fast forward, I am currently in Bali, Indonesia, hunting giants out here. You might be thinking, "Bali is overfished", but boy, are you wrong. In the north of Bali, there are about 500 FADs, and while there are many commercial fishermen, they all jig right next to the FADs. What does this mean?

Pelagics hunting outside, which no one targets...

Here is a nice pic of me and a 250lb black marlin off Mozambique

I digress, I've been fishing for 4 days now, and here is how it has been:

• Day 1, raised a sailfish, missed a blue on the long corner

• Day 2, nothing

• Day 3? My oh my. Missed a sailfish early, had a 400lb Blue come up and eat on the short corner, and saw a free jumping 800lber.

But day 4? This is what dreams are made of.

It had been a long morning, saw some flying mahi and some feeding mackerel, but nothing big. We had begun to head home when we spotted some spinner Dolphins feeding.

For reference: I am fishing on a boat that is 80cm wide, and two rod holders. I did bring my own stuff, though.

Since we were seeing nothing, I went to take out my phone when the long corner goes beserk. I mean, holy cow (literally). The thing ate a 14-inch hot breakfast from Black Bart, my gosh.

For the first 20 minutes, I am close to getting spooled, and the tuna goes under the boat. I am shouting at the captain, the whole place is mayhem. It's like the world was coming to an end.

Eventually, we get the yellowfin in front of the boat, and the battle commences. Now, I am a marlin fisherman, but a YFT is a different beast. For the next hour and a half, she took 100 meters, and I took 100. We went back and forth toe to toe. Rod tip in the water, my waist is killing me from digging a 50W into my stomach. It wasn't fishing; it was trench m*therf*cking warfare. Arm went dead. Back felt like, well, honestly, I couldn't feel it...

Should have seen the captain's face, it was that look like, "maybe we aren't prepared to land this fish" (as he smoked his cigarette).

But I got greedy, set the drag high, and pulled the hook when she was less than 100 meters from the boat.

That's fishing. You lose some, and you win some. An absolute unit of a fish, and one I will dream about tonight before heading back out tomorrow. My gosh

Fishing On This Blog

While I have posted about fishing in Yemen on this blog, I am going to be posting more fishing recaps going forward. It might not interest some, but I am not posting about "catching a 500lb blue in Cape Verde", my mission is to write about places no one thinks about fishing.

We have discovered 4-5% of our ocean; let's explore the rest together. Next stop for fishing? Mogadishu...

Final Thoughts

If you think there are no fish in Bali? Well, think again, and go find out for yourself. For 100$, you can rent a local boat for the day to hook up to some giant beasts. Black Marlin and sails inshore, Blue Marlin offshore off the rumpons, and Tuna feeding off spinners: it's nuts. I swear to you this: this fish hurts more than the 1100lb black marlin I had 1 meter from the leader before it got sharked. What a unit.