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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