The International Underwater Spearfishing Association

International Underwater Spearfishing Association

World Record

110.1 kg. , 242.7 lbs.

Tuna, Bigeye Thunnus obesus

Record Category: Men Speargun

Diver:		Paulo Afonso
Date:		6/23/2014
Location:		PORTUGAL

June 24 2014 at 4:30am. Harbor of Madalena in Pico Island – Azores. “BLUE”: A 3 ton, fiberglass, 8.8m x 2.5m cabined boat with 2 x 150hp out-board engines. The Crew: Pedro Januário, Luís Ermida (Boat owners and captains), Marcelo Soares and Me (the guys in the water). The plan: search for the big tunas off the southwest coast of Pico island. Me and Marcelo got in the water at the same time. Some current (4 in a scale of 0 to 10) but extremely calm sea, 18m/20m visibility, water temperature 19ºC. I was only diving and waiting in open water hoping a curious tuna would pass by me. It was around 11:00 am that I spotted at the distance this big tuna coming in my direction at about 10m deep. I took a deep breath and went down trying to intercept his trajectory. Clearly a Bigeye, alone and relatively calm. I leveled in his depth and waited with the speargun collected, in two seconds he was already passing in front of me but not as close as I expected. Still felt confidence, reached forward my spergun and took a long shot. I aimed to the rear half of the fish in an attempt to ensure a good holding shot and the shaft hit him right behind his third rear section, about 60cm ahead of its caudal fin and slightly above the center of that section of the fish. He took off violently and I went to the surface immediately, grabbing my second and last Float.The first 30m bungee was quickly stretched taking down the rigid float, then the 15m bungee forcing the Riffe 3 atmosphere float, but due to the relatively shallow depths of the bank area (80m/120m) the tuna never had deep enough water to completely sink the entire float system. I never lost contact with it. I was worried the fish would tear up because I knew that the slip tip did not go all the way through. Limited myself to follow and keep up with it, never putting any additional pressure on the system. At the 15 minute mark the hard float slowly started coming up. Only after another 15 minutes I felt that the fish was tired and beginning to show signs of giving up. I passed my unloaded speargun to the boat and began pulling very carefully the bigeye up. After another 20 minutes of pulling and letting go I finally managed to recover all the bungee. At my request Marcelo passed me a 11 liter rigid float with a shark clip that I used to attach to the end of the bungee, this way leaving the tuna only a little over the length of the shooting line underneath me. From the boat Luís threw me my unloaded Riffe Euro 130cm for the second shot. I loaded the speargun, went down and placed the shot right through his head ensuring that he was completely out. Once at the surface I pulled the tuna up to me. Took the completely subdued fish close to the boat where I looped his tail with a 2.2m long rope. I got in the boat and after some attempts we managed to pull it in. Finally!
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