By Merit McCrea
SAN DIEGO – Capt. Markus Medak called in to report that he and Capt. James Roe had landed a huge bluefin tuna fishing a dead flying fish on kite gear while rod-and-reel commercial fishing aboard their boat Shearwater. Medak is the long-time owner and Captain of the charter boat New Lo-An based at Point Loma Sportfishing. Gilled and gutted, fully exsanguinated it hit the scales at Tunaville Market at a huge 449 pounds, which puts its whole weight solidly in the 500-pound class.
The two provided the following report:
On September 8, 2026, what started as just another day of tuna fishing aboard the F/V Shearwater turned into a day we won’t soon forget.
James Roe and Markus Medak, serving as both captains and anglers, were fishing a rigged flying fish beneath a California Flyer kite. It was just another bait getting sent out and, at the time, there was nothing to suggest that the next bite was going to turn into something extraordinary.
The tuna was hooked on a Team Rainshadow rod, paired with a Penn VIS 70 loaded with 130-pound braid and finished with a 300-pound fluorocarbon leader. What initially felt like another bluefin hookup quickly became something much bigger as the fish continued to take line and settle into a long, powerful run!
For approximately an hour and 30 minutes, we worked the fish toward the boat. As the fight progressed, it became clear that this wasn’t an average bluefin. When we finally got the fish alongside the boat and landed it, we knew we had something special.
The bluefin weighed 449 pounds dressed, with an estimated round weight of approximately 500 pounds.
After years of fishing and spending much of our lives on the water, these are the moments you hope for but never take for granted. It started with a flying fish under a kite, just another bait on another day. None of us had any idea what was going to happen when that fish bit.
By the time the fish was aboard the F/V Shearwater, it had become one of those catches that will stay with us for a long time
An earlier conversation with Medak revealed that the wind-on leader was 200-pound Izorline and Izor’s National Sales Representative Wendy Tochihara provided that those shop-made Izorline wind-on leaders are custom built with their First String monofilament.
Subsequent chatter has it that these huge tuna appeared to have been chowing some huge rockfish out and around the outer banks!
