A 50-pound wahoo may not be a big deal when it’s caught off the coast of Florida, Hawaii or the Carribean. But it’s not often that the species shows up on the U.S. Pacific Coast. In fact, a 50-pounder caught Aug. 30 off of southern California may be the first legitimate wahoo catch on record from waters north of the U.S./Mexico border.
The fish was caught by Eric Kim, of Fullerton, Cali., while trolling for tuna on the charter boat The Joker off Newport Beach, Cali., according to a story by Pete Thomas at GrindTV.com.
Although wahoo, known as oni in Hawaii and peto in central America, are a target species for anglers off the southern Baja California Peninsula and The Sea of Cortez, they don’t often make it north of the border, where water temperatures are colder than the tropical and subtropical seas the fish normally inhabit. The appearance of this fish has been attributed to the warmer than normal temperatures off the coast of southern California this year.
Kim’s fish is such a rare occurrence that California does not even have a state record for the species. According to The Orange County Register, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration even contacted Capt. George Garrett, of The Joker, to obtain tissue samples of the fish.
The warm waters that brought this Wahoo so far north also account for some uncommonly good offshore fishing on the U.S. Pacific Coast this year.
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