If you think tuna fishing is crazy wait until you see this

He's jumping our house above. He's jumping from 244 to 226. We might have a state record. What's the Alabama state record? 237. That is the Alabama state record yellowfin tuna. And in this video, the game plan is simple. Locate the birds. Find the bait ball. Make a perfect cast. Hooking into one of these giant yellowfin tuna is where the fun ends and the stopwatch begins. You are in a race against time because the apex predator is lurking nearby waiting to claim your prize. Oh, man. It was a nice tuna. Man, that sucks. It's the rollercoaster full of emotions that keeps me coming back for more. Magnum, baby! Join us for the adventure and the challenge. Big time with the big one. Look at him go! Go! As we chase Alabama's largest yellowfin tunas, there's only one thing that remains the same between tuna fishing trips with Captain Kurt. And that is, you leave Dolphin Island before the sun comes up and you arrive at the tuna grounds right after sunrise. Besides that, every day of fishing is a new day of fishing. As we approached our first feeding frenzy of the morning, I sat up on the bow with my popper in hand waiting to make the perfect cast. A lot of times, the difference between catching tuna and not comes down to that first cast because tuna are always on the move so you want to make sure your first cast is as far from the boat and as precise as possible. Tuna are always chasing the bait so I'm using the birds and the bait as my indicator of where to throw my cast. And thankfully, I threw it right in front of a giant yellowfin tuna. I'm on! I'm on! Big one! Oh! I got him! Oh boy! Oh yeah! Big one! Yeah! One of the most important things I need to do is to communicate with Captain Kurt while fighting this fish. It's going under. It's going under? Yeah. Because he can't see where my line is and I need to direct him which way to drive the boat. Back right here. You're good. You're good. You're good. This way, we don't accidentally run over the line or that the tuna runs underneath the boat and cuts us off. Did you see it hit it? It's right next to the boat. Really? Yeah. Big John with the big one! Look at him go! Woo! He said, I don't want to come home yet! Hopefully that wasn't a shark. Hopefully he didn't get sharked there. You think he got caught? I don't know. Did you see him eat it? This thing's ran like 400 yards. From the flash I saw, this is bigger than anything I've had. 214. What if he got ate? He's just coming up. He's dead white now. A little bit. Coming up pretty good. I see color. Oh, man. It was a nice tuna. Look at... Man. That sucks. It was a good one. Can I keep it? Can I keep it for bait? Dude, that was a giant. Yeah, that was a good one. Oh. I bet he was close to 200, right? My only consolation prize was retrieving my black ledge popper. These poppers are hand crafted wood made in Australia. I've had a lot of success and caught some giant yellowfin tuna on them. But, even with retrieving the popper and seeing how big this yellowfin tuna was, it's gut wrenching. Hey, Kurt. Right over there. To the right. 200 yards out. I've been on several tuna trips over the years where if you miss one giant, that might be your only chance on the day. But, thankfully, the tuna just kept on jumping and so we just kept on chasing them down. Always looking for the birds or any surface action to know where to throw and cast next. As we approached our second top water feeding frenzy of the day, Captain Aaron threw a perfect cast right in front of another giant yellowfin tuna. Got him, baby! And this tuna pulled out some serious drag. Aaron passed off the rod and got the clients hooked up on a real fish of a lifetime. There are lots of challenges of landing a giant yellowfin tuna on spinning gear, but one of the hardest things is you can do everything right while fighting this fish and there's still so many things that are out of your control. Just like our first tuna that got ate by the sharks, the sharks beat us to the finish line once again. It seemed the sharks just kept on following us. Every time we saw a tuna, and we made a cast, there was always more sharks than tuna. The sharks that were here were all spinner sharks. And the worst part about spinner sharks is when they jump out of the water, they look like a yellowfin tuna off in the distance. And the sharks, they just got thicker and thicker. Sharks, look out! Yeah, right in front. See them? Oh shoot, come on, get out of there! Oh boy, oh! So we were constantly chasing these feeding frenzies, hoping that they were giant schools of yellowfin, but it just turned out to be large schools of sharks. See the bait bowl? Bunch of sharks in there. This was the craziest feeding frenzy I've ever seen. The only problem? There was no tuna. This was all sharks. Sharks and Jack Cravels. Sharks and Jack Cravels! Yeah, but look at all the sharks. We stuck around, hoping that we would see some tuna blow up, but there were just more and more sharks. It would be a bad day to fall in here. You ever hooked one? With the popper? No, a pelican. No! No, you dummies! Got a freaking pelican. Got two pelicans. You dumb sh**! The most frustrating part about hooking these two pelicans was the tuna were still blowing up all around the boat. I had a tuna right there in front of us! Nick! Straight off the bow! Look at him! Straight off the bow! But there was nothing we could do because I needed to safely release both of these pelicans before we could chase any tuna. And unfortunately, by the time that I released both pelicans, the tuna were long gone. The two-for-one special on pelicans was the icing on the cake for a day of missed opportunities. But the good news is no two days of fishing are ever the same. And on day number two, everything that happened on day number one was different. Once we got out to the tuna grounds, we didn't see any topwater action. And because there was no topwater action, and no birds, and no sharks, and no bait, instead of throwing a popper all day like I did on day number one, I used a swim bait, an NLBN, no live bait needed, so that I could hopefully catch my first tuna deeper in the water column. Throughout the day, we moved from oil rigs, to shrimp boats, to gas rigs, but we never saw a single topwater tuna. And so I just kept casting, hoping that I would catch my first ever tuna on an NLBN swim bait. And about halfway through the afternoon, I hooked up to a real nice fish. So without being able to see the initial hit, I really had no idea how big this tuna was. Come on! Alright John, tell us what you got over here. What you got little buddy? Is it a baby marlin? I just need this fish in. Get it rid of the cocktail ice. Come on. I'm gaining on him now. There were several times throughout the fight where I thought I was gaining on the fish, and then just like that, he'd pull me right down, and I'd be hanging over the gunwale rails, just trying to keep my line from touching the side of the boat. Come on up. About 120 feet. There he is. I see color. What color is he? Is it really? No. Not funny. Man, I saw it when it hit that rod. That was funny. I knew it was a tuna right after he took off. Out of shape. The biggest mental hurdle is when you're first able to see the fish, because everyone's leaning over the side of the boat, looking at the fish, and everyone's thinking you're close to the finish line. But in reality, this is when the fight really starts. He's under a little bit. There's so many things that can go wrong, and if my line touches the side of the boat at any point, we will lose this fish. I know when I get it on the popper, because I can see the hit, but this was underneath. Come on, baby. This tuna was doing death spirals for the last 20 minutes, and it felt like it was just staying in the same depth of water. He's bigger than I initially thought, so he's a good one. We need the big T-what? T-37. Alright. 214 with a... I don't know that he's that big, but he's big. Let's just say this, is this bigger than Ryan Maury's personal best? I'm gonna say yes. This is the moment when I knew that I had a giant on the line, when Captain Kurt instructed Aaron to get the harpoon ready, because I've never seen Kurt on any charter use it, and I've never seen one used for tuna before. Holy smokes. Holy crap. The size of that thing. The hardest part of the fight for me was right here, because the tuna was within 10 feet of the surface, and it was doing its final death spirals. Aaron was ready with the harpoon, ready to throw the dart, but right at the last moment, the tuna gave it one more push, and swam right back down. I see the light. It don't look like the angels are too good up there. It's a team effort to land one of these giant fish. You have Kurt driving the boat, you got two guys ready to gaff the fish, and you got Aaron with the harpoon. And trying to get some video makes for a lot of different things going on at once. This is so cool! Yeah baby! Let's go! Yeah baby! Open it, lower it. Thankfully, we had a lot of people on hand, and everyone was able to contribute into landing this fish. Good job out here John Bullet. Man! Good job! Man, that's the first one I ever caught. A magnum! Oh, he's over there. Let's go! After last year, when I officially caught my first 200 plus pound yellowfin tuna on spinning gear, I wasn't sure I would ever have the chance, or the opportunity, to catch another one. But leave it to Captain Kurt. He always finds the big fish. And this is all thanks to him. Alright, come on Goldilocks! Sit right here, we're going to put this fish in your lap. If you have a bucket list fish, or you want to catch a giant tuna, definitely check out Captain Kurt. I've said it in previous videos, and I'll say it again. There's very few people who can make fishing more fun than it already is, but Captain Kurt has that ability. All of his charter information is in the bio below. After arriving back at the dock, we did our best to get some estimates of how big this yellowfin tuna was. It took three guys to hoist this tuna up. The only problem was, we didn't have a bar high enough to hang it from without the tuna hitting its head on the ground. But after a few attempts, these are the weights we got. After bending the metal bar and readjusting the tuna, we got a few more numbers. But it was at 237.4. Pull him back again. You get about two seconds when I lift him up. What's he weighing now? 233. 244.4. We're going to have to find a scale. He's jumping around so much. He's jumping from 244 to 226. Bend that bar. You got to put him on that tree. This is the definition of roll tide. Regardless of what the official weight was, it was over 200 pounds, and it was a true fish of a lifetime. Back to back years with two 200-plus pound yellowfin tunas. And it's all thanks to Captain Curt.