The people on board were me:

(Ron Kwan: Gaff man)

Mark Urkov (Co-owner of the boat, leaderman)

Drew Naffzigger (Angler)

Denise Urkov (co-owner of the boat, driver)

Danny Kwan (Camera Man, comedian).

We were on the first day of the Mako Madness tournament and after catching a couple runts we decided to head out over to the 209 in Mark and Denise’s 27 foot Shamrock Mackinaw. Only about 2 hours into the tournament we came across a huge dorsal fin around a large dead opah. We threw out our New Fishall Chum bucket and immediately gaffed the 100+lb dead opah. It had been ripped in half with huge chunks missing out of the fish and it looked like it was freshly killed. Anyways I think we interrupted Mr. Mako during breakfast because for the next 45 minutes he would not leave our site. He circled our boat the whole time eyeing the dead fish and he would not take a look at any of our tunas and mackerels. Needless to say he only wanted the opah and so finally we were able to get him to inhale a huge chunk of the dead fish that Drew cut off. The fish was about 10 ft long from what we saw but he was really really thick. We actually thought it was a Great White when we first saw it pop up. When Drew hooked up we basically drove off away from the fish to give him a chance to cool off a bit and that’s when we got those 2 aerial shots of that sucker. Oh man if you can hear our screams that was probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. I don’t think the video does it justice because we were so far away but the thing took off like a jet and did a couple flips in the air. After about an hour Drew got the fish next to the side of the boat where Mark tried a leadering the fish. The first time around when it came up the starboard side the fish does a head shake and looked like he tried to pull Mark into the water. On the second time around everything looked perfect, Drew pulls the fish up perfectly to the side of the boat, Mark leaders the fish to perfection, I stick the son of bitch with the largest Aftco flying gaff right in the back of the dorsal where your supposed to, and Mr. Mako does a turn and takes off ripping the gaff right out. How the fish got off the gaff is still unknown, but I figure a fish that big isn’t gonna come in easy. The fish goes right underneath the boat and up around the other side cutting us off in the prop. Nice fish story if it weren’t for the video. I think we owe everything to my pops, Danny for hanging onto that camera and catching all this footage. Anyways I hope you liked this fish story, I’ll get you another one soon but hopefully with a better ending.

-Ron