BY MIKE STEVENS
POINT LOMA— Images of an absolute depth charge of a yellowfin tuna caught by Earl Gill IV beamed home from the Excel with half of the 10-day trip still ahead of her ensured the hype train would be all-ahead-full when the legendary long-range vessel returned to San Diego early Saturday morning. When weighed on the boat, the tuna tipped the scale at 448 pounds which is significantly more than the IGFA all-tackle record of (427). That got the buzz going throughout the sportfishing community, but the fish still had to be weighed on a certified scale, and that wasn’t happening until it was carted up to the scale on dry land near Fisherman’s Landing.
“We will be back to the landing tomorrow morning to offload our catch and to weigh Earl’s tuna on an official scale” Captain Justin Fleck posted to the Excel Facebook page while steaming back home. “To my knowledge, there have only been four other yellowfin tuna weighing 400-plus pounds caught on rod and reel. Win, lose, or draw, it is an amazing achievement. It makes you wonder if we have been hooking fish of this caliber over the years but are just now able to start landing them because of the advancements in fishing gear. Here on the Excel, our mission is to put our anglers on the biggest fish in the ocean, but every now and then, we’re astonished by the sheer size of a catch, and we’re thrilled for Earl to reel in the fish of a lifetime and can’t wait to see if it sets a new IGFA record.”
This was the 29th-annual Brad Merritt’s “Bent Rods” 10-Day Excel Charter, and Gill made the cross-country trip from North Carolina to take part in it. He was already on a plane home as this was being written early Saturday afternoon mere hours from his fish of a lifetime being dock-carted up the pier in front of Point Loma Sportfishing, through an applauding, cameras-out crowd and to the scale at Fisherman’s Landing where everyone was clamoring to hear the number.
