“Captain, we got one!” Wyatt yelled to the Captain! It was a Sunday morning when Wyatt had first started to pack the boat and help get ready for a 3-day tournament. He was with his uncle, Sewall, who was the captain of the boat. Uncle Sewalls boat was a 38-foot Holland. Along with him was his cousin and a family friend, Billy Rodgers. They made sure everything on the boat was running smoothly before they left. As well as making sure they had enough food and ice for a few days. After ensuring everyone and everything they needed was on the boat, they launched off the dock. They had left around 9pm that Sunday.
Wyatt Luke is a senior at the Morgan High School. He loves to fish, play basketball, baseball and be involved in the school in general. Since he was six, Wyatt has been taking trips to Maine yearly with his Uncle Sewalls. He has fished all throughout his childhood and growing up.
Wyatt was fishing off the coast of Seguin, Maine. Wyatt and the crew were targeting bluefin tuna. Bluefin Tuna can get up to 1500 pounds, and they are recorded as a prize food fish. Bluefin is mostly used to make foods like sushi and sashimi. Bluefin’s costly value for food isn’t the only thing that brings people’s attention either; the great size, speed, and power they display draws in fishermen, writers, and scientists. Bluefins are the foundation of the world’s most profitable fisheries in the world. Wyatt and the crew were headed to a spot called Bantam Rock to fish. This was a reef far offshore to target the species they were after. A reef is an underwater structure normally made out of coral or rocks that make a habitat for a variety of marine life, almost like an underwater city.
Wyatt fished the first day using a fishfinder to mark fish. This means that there were fish underneath him, they just were not biting. They fished this all throughout Sunday and could not get a bite. From Wyatt’s point of view, “It was frustrating, but that’s what fishing is all about.” The crew and Wyatt fished till about 9 pm, Monday, until heading back to the dock and calling it a night.
The tournament was the @boothbayharbortunachallenge, and it was a 3 day long tournament. The tournament rules said nobody could fish on Tuesday. The heaviest bluefin caught would win the tournament. Wyatt and the crew took this day to rest and get ready for the remaining days of the tournament. Wyatt fueled up during the trip on venison breakfast sandwiches in the mornings, ham and cheese sandwiches, Wheat Thins, and Cheez-It throughout the trip. Wyatt stated, it was “very enjoyable and relaxing.”
After resting up on Tuesday, the crew got back at it. They left Tuesday at 5 pm to go out and prepare for the following day. Wednesday came around the corner, after staying on the boat, and the crew started to fish. Similar to Monday, they were marking fish again, but this time they hooked into something. It was something big, but they did not know exactly at first. It took them a while to reel the unknown fish in and then once it got to the surface, they realized it was a thresher shark.“We caught about 12 sharks, and they think they caught one of the same sharks 4 times but no bluefin on Wednesday” explained Wyatt. The crew and Wyatt continued to fish until the sun was down and then rested up for the last day, hoping they could hook into a big bluefin the next day.

They woke up bright and early on Thursday morning ready to get a bluefin. This time the captain made them do something different. He noticed the fish they were marking were at a deeper water column.  A column of water is a vertical expanse of water stretching between the surface and the floor of a body of water. This means that the captain had to make a change! The captain had everybody put the  squid go more towards the bottom of the rig they were using, near the weight. The crew and Wyatt had changed all their rigs and then began to fish. On the last day of the tournament, after a long three days of not hooking into a bluefin, Wyatt had seen the pole’s tip bend and the line start to scream line out of the fishing reel. Wyatt screamed up to the captain, “Fish on!”  Wyatt and the crew fought the fish for about forty-five long minutes. The fish was very strong and wouldn’t stop running.  When the crew and Wyatt got the fish up to the boat, they realized it was a Bluefin Tuna. “It was the best memory of the trip, flipping that bluefin into the boat!” reflected Wyatt. After getting the fish into the boat they fished for a little longer and had no more luck so they decided to go get the fish they caught before weighing and scaled out for the tournament.

The fish ended up being 392 lbs.“I learned so much on the trip, from migration patterns to different water columns. It was a very enjoyable experience and I definitely learned a lot.” Wyatt grew up fishing with his uncle. Freshwater to saltwater, they have done most of it together. Wyatt stated, “My uncle inspired me to fish ever since a young age, I’ve been doing it with him for so long”. He and his uncle have a blast doing this trip every year together. But this was more challenging than the year before. Wyatt cannot wait until next summer to go on another fishing journey with his uncle.