West Yarmouth man catches Tuna from a Kayak

[dogfish]

Thought this was a great story. Go Dave!

http://www.wickedlocal.com/orleans/news/x1298142109/No-fish-story-West-Yarmouth-man-catches-tuna-from-a-kayak?zc_p=0#axzz28NIeLfHR

No fish story: West Yarmouth man catches tuna from a kayak

David Lamoureux holds world record for biggest bluefin catch unassisted from a kayak



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PHOTOS COURTESY OF DAVID LAMOUREUX AND FORTITUDEFISHING.COM

David Lamoureux poses with the 157-pound bluefin tuna, which he caught off Provincetown in 2009, capturing the world record for a fish caught unassisted from a kayak.






By Susan Vaughn
The Register (http://www.wickedlocal.com/orleans)
Posted Sep 13, 2012 @ 03:24 PM
Last update Sep 13, 2012 @ 03:30 PM


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YARMOUTH —

David Lamoureux heads off the Outer Cape near Provincetown into the deepest waters of New England in a feather-light, recreational kayak carrying 50 to 75 pounds of fishing and lifesaving equipment, most of it packed around or directly on his 6-foot-1 inch, 195-pound body in the tiny cockpit.
The fishing gear includes a paddle, a harpoon, 3- to 4-inch fishing hooks, two fishing rods and extra tackle, three types of pliers and six to eight custom rigged frozen ballyhoo bait. The lifesaving equipment, most of which is attached to his person, includes a GPS, two compasses, fog horn, whistle, flares, a life preserver, ocean diving fins, VHF radio, cell phone, three knives and 5-Hour energy drink.

Just to get to the water, Lamoureux lugs the gear and the 50-pound kayak alone through the dunes’ deep sand from parking lots at Race Point or Head of the Meadow beaches. He says launching off the dunes is difficult. “The hard part is dragging the gear in and out.”
Then what Lamoureux calls the “fun part” begins: battling a 100-pound plus bluefin tuna from his kayak. Lamoureux’s longest struggle was this summer with a 400-pound bluefin, which pulled him 15 miles for four and a half hours. When the line finally broke, he says, ”It was the one time I was relieved to lose the fish. It starts getting dangerous when you’re really tired.”

After that gargantuan effort, Lamoureux was still four miles off shore and seven miles from his launching point and the return trek back to his car with the kayak and gear.
If he’s lucky, he’s also got a bluefin tuna.

“Carrying the tuna gets really heavy and you’re already exhausted,” he says. When people on the beach see him coming with a huge fish, they often help him and he sometimes cuts off chunks of the tuna for them right there on the beach.

So what is Lamoureux’s motivation for going through this six-hour process for two to three hours of fishing? “It’s a challenge,” Lamoureux says simply. “This summer my goal is to set a new record,” he says, which is to break his own world record of catching a 157-pound bluefin tuna unassisted from his kayak in November 2009.

He doesn’t catch the fish to sell. He has only a recreational fishing license. He gives the fish away or releases many of them because he says the western North Atlantic bluefin tuna are a precious resource. The bluefin were overfished in the ‘70s and’80s down to about 20 percent of stock but the population has stabilized since then because of some of the strictest federal harvesting regulations, he says. “It’s a balance of protein source, economics and survivability of the fish.”








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[dogfish]

Lamoureux, 45, got the idea for kayak fishing after seeing an article in a Cape Cod tourist book, thinking “wouldn’t that be awesome?’ He had only been in a kayak once, but he was a lifelong fisherman who spent his childhood summers on the Cape with his family and parents, Don and Mary Ellen Lamoureux of West Yarmouth, who are teachers.

“No one could do this without growing up here and being familiar with the Cape,” he says. He is based in West Yarmouth while pursuing his passion. “Now by far it’s the most fun form of fishing,” Lamoureux says. The hardest thing to get used to, he says, was sitting in the kayak with his long legs straight out for several hours.
His new adventure coincided with a career change from commodities trader in Chicago for 15 years to launching an international titanium products company with a partner out of Cambridge. He employed a similar amount of research to kayak fishing as he did to his new business.

Lamoureux had to get a federal permit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for his kayak that he appropriately named Fortitude, but he found out the agency doesn’t register kayaks. “You need a motor,” he says, so he got a motor. The tuna fishing license belongs to the registered vessel.

Before he started kayak fishing, Lamoureux spent most of the first summer in 2009 studying satellite maps to see where the best fishing spots are for bluefin, researching weather patterns and writing a weather-tracking program. “The most important thing is the weather and the currents or you won’t get back,” he says.

He has had to swim back to shore only once and has never had to ask the Coast Guard for help. “You have to be self-sufficient,” he says.
Lamoureux has even figured out how to estimate the size of the fish he catches. “The fish needs a certain amount of mass to pull my weight,” he says.

He fishes primarily for bluefin tuna, because, he says, “Bluefin is the number one showcase fish. It’s the fastest and most powerful fish,” and, therefore, one of the most challenging to catch. In order to find his prize, Lamoureux has to paddle continually up to two miles offshore where the bluefin are. “You never stop paddling to catch a fish,” he says.

Once he latches onto a bluefin, Lamoureux describes the difficulty of hanging onto to it from a kayak: “It’s like standing on the railroad tracks and hooking an engine. That’s when you go for a Nantucket sleigh ride, crank down, and drag the braking system to control how fast the line goes out. As you tighten, you go with the fish,” he says. The largest fish get the kayak to plane out. “It’s fun, but it’s the dangerous part,” he says.







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[dogfish]

The harpoon dart goes to the line that goes to a tuna ball, an A2 buoy, which the tuna follows. Lamoureux says his recreational kayak with its hull shape is the best kind for handling the waves while touring and fishing kayaks are good only in calm, flat water.

“There’s a lot of physics involved,” Lamoureux says. “My type [of kayak] doesn’t rock. It rides up and down on the waves and stays vertical.” When fighting the fish, he turns the kayak broadside to the waves and wedges his knees into the cockpit.

The best time for catching the bluefin off the Outer Cape is September and October and August is the worst month because the water gets warm, Lamoureux says. Sometimes he can fish into November when they return to the Gulf of Mexico to spawn.

And, yes, Lamoureux has had shark encounters, including four Great Whites over the three years, so he researched every Great White shark attack. “They don’t usually come up to boats,” he says, but he has learned that if they come near his kayak, the best thing to do is paddle quietly and head out to sea. “Don’t act like prey. Don’t panic,” he advises.
However, he is more vulnerable when towing a tuna because the sharks trail the blood. Recently, a shark followed him for the last half mile, but he beat it to shore by 20 minutes. The National Seashore rangers were following his journey that day with their binoculars from the Race Point station and helped him with his gear when he got back.

Lamoureux doesn’t encourage others to take up this challenging, dangerous sport. He keeps in shape by running and working out at a gym. “You’ve got to be pretty disciplined,” he says. It also helps that he’s a self-proclaimed workaholic.
Lamoureux’s adventure is becoming well known through several national and international newspaper and magazine stories and social media. He has many fans following his fishing expeditions via Facebook, Twitter and his website, Fortitudefishing.com. Because of so much interest in his endeavor, he has tiny Go-Pro, high definition video cameras attached to his head and kayak that let people watch his fishing battles.

His adventures also will be featured this fall on a new fishing show on a major nature cable TV channel, which filmed him for a week in August.
More videos of Lamoureux fishing from his kayak can be seen on his website, fortitudefishing.com.


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[storminsteve]

That guy is nuts! Awesome

[vpass]

:wow:, imagine a tuna taking you 20 miles straight out towards the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Yes he's nuts.

Thanks for sharing Dogfish.

[hookedonbass]

:wow:, imagine a tuna taking you 20 miles straight out towards the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Yes he's nuts.

Thanks for sharing Dogfish.

Yes dogfish thanks for the article. I would definitely be crapping my pants towed that far out. He is a true hunter.

[storminsteve]

Yeah hooked onbass I don't know if I would have the balls to do that either. what if you can't get back after being towed out 10 miles. And then you have the tuna to tow back with you, must put a drag on the hull.