BUZZBAIT [ P R O F I LE ]
Bluefin Mystery Man
DAVE LAMOUREUX’S LEGAL SEAFOOD BY ADAM BOLONSKY
I
n November 2009, Dave Lamoureux achieved the impossible: 156 pounds of
bluefin tuna glory, single-handedly, paddling to and from shore. No support boat, no free mothership ride, nothing to stain the purity of the feat. Despite a flurry of mainstream press,
Lamoureux remained a mysterious figure in kayak fishing circles. Questions went unan- swered. Why Cape Cod? Why solo? Why try this in a sit-inside? How can I pull this trick? Lamoureux pulled the veil back a little for
Kayak Angler. Off Provincetown, on Cape Cod where
I fish, the tuna grounds are pretty close to shore, about three or four miles out. I don’t know of any place in the world where bluefin come that close. Te tidal currents there, at Race Point, run hard, and the waves on Stell- waggen Bank can get big. It’s an intimidating place. Hook a bluefin there, and not only are
you far offshore, you’ve got a three- or four-hour fight on your hands. Te record- setting bluefin I caught—a 156-pounder—I fought the whole time, and for the hour it took me to secure it, the tide was running back towards my put-in. Once I had the fish secure, I was just a mile from shore. Dangers aside, tally the clock and mile-
age and it’s a 10-hour day, maybe 15 miles of paddling, just to spend an hour-and- a-half on the bluefin grounds. Tere’s no other way to do it if you want to be legal. Get out under your own power. Fight and land the fish without any assistance. Paddle back to land. You can have someone standing by
in another boat to keep an eye on you, but the moment they touch your gear or your fish, you’ve broken the law, you’re out of compli- ance with NOAA regs, and you have to cut that fish off or let it go. I fish from a sit-in kayak. Tey’re a better
choice.Tey’re safer. Tey’re more seaworthy. Your butt lies below the waterline in a sit-in, and that lowers your center of gravity. Fishing for bluefin, you’re on the water a long time, so the cockpit, the deck of a sit-in, provides that much more protection from the cold and the waves and wind. It gives you an out of the way place to store all the tuna gear. I once lost $1,400 worth of gear to a fish.
It was the second bluefin I hooked. I was in a hurry, and before I put the gear in the wa- ter, I forgot to check my drag. Well, a bluefin hit. It started to run, tow me backwards, and then it started pulling the stern underwater. I turned for the rod to fix the drag and the fish ripped the whole rod holder out. Everything: rivets and tube and plate, nuts and bolts and
156-pounds of prime tuna: $7,020.
Solo kayak bluefin record: priceless. PHOTO: COURTESY DAVE LAMOUREUX
a hunk of deck plastic. And my gear, a $300 Van Stall rod, a $1,000 Stella reel, $60 of braided line, $40 in leader, a custom ballyhoo rig—all of it—gone. To get a NOAA bluefin permit, you have
to register your boat. I tried to register my kayak online. I tried to do it on the phone. Finally I drove to the state registration office here on the Cape, with my kayak on the roof and a copy of the federal regulations in my hand. Te clerk said, okay, we’ll give this a shot; if your request kicks back, it kicks back. Well it didn’t. I plugged in my registration number online with NOAA, paid the permit fee and I was set. I’ll keep at this for as long as I can. But
I’m 43 now. Sometimes I think I won’t be able to handle this for too many more years. It’s dangerous. Te risks are high, even with all my safety gear: drysuit, PFD, two cell phones and a VHF radio, swim fins. I think the day will come when I won’t have the physical stamina to keep at it.
kayakanglermag.com… 13
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