Fisherman Joseph Smith caught a gigantic 170 pound yellowfin tuna, just off Grand Cayman’s North West Point. “This is the biggest tuna I’ve ever caught.” Mr Smith said.

That giant tuna is just 19 pounds short of the Cayman Islands record for tuna, and is the same weight as a middle-weight boxer, an average washing machine, seventeen human heads or Barack Obama.

The fish was weighed at the Morgan’s Harbour dock.

Despite the huge size of the fish, the boat that Mr. Smith and fellow crewmember Denny Rivers caught the fish in, the Abba, was very small- just over 13 feet.

“I fought him for about 45 minutes, – it was hard work,” Mr Smith said.

“We went out fishing yesterday afternoon, and we decided to go out for the moon rising. First we caught a wahoo, which weighed about 28 pounds and after four we caught the big tuna.

“When we go out fishing we use live bonita (small tuna) or flying fish. We tried the live bonita around for a while but there was nothing. As the tide came on, we caught a wahoo and we couldn’t get any more bonita, so we turned to the flying fish because it’s the next best bait. We caught the tuna with the flying fish – you can’t even see the hook it swallowed,” Mr. Smith continued.

The tuna, which sells for around seven dollars a pound, was sold to Calypso Grill for over 1000 dollars, according to fellow West Bay fisherman, Captain Bruce Bush.

Thanks to Captain Bruce Bush for supplying the information to the iNews Cayman.

(Photo by: Christopher Tobutt)