Thought this was a great story. Go Dave!

http://www.wickedlocal.com/orleans/n...#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
Posted Sep 13, 2012 @ 03:24 PM
Last update Sep 13, 2012 @ 03:30 PM


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VIDEO: Kayak fisherman













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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