Every fisherman wants a story, and Hunter Hicks now has one that sounds completely made up. Except it’s all on video.
The North Carolina angler was fishing solo off the Outer Banks when he hooked a 212-pound bluefin tuna. That’s a good day on the water in any event. But especially so if you’re on a jetski.
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With no boat and no crew, it was an all-out battle. Because once that tuna took the bait, it didn’t just fight — it dragged him nearly 10 miles offshore.
“At that point, I was almost 10 miles offshore, and (could barely see land),” Hicks told WTKR. “I don’t have a chart plotter or GPS when my phone dies, but I know how to make it in, I’m a waterman, but still, in my mind I was starting to get a little scared. But I knew if I would’ve let go of that fish, nobody would’ve believed me.”
So he held on.
Built like a torpedo, fights like a freight train. This is what 200+ pounds of bluefin looks like up close. (Getty Images)
Hicks fought the tuna for more than two hours, by himself, without a fighting belt or any of the usual setup you’d expect for a fish that size.
“I would say the hardest fish I’ve ever caught in my life, by far, the way I did it, on the Jet Ski… it was just me or the beast,” he said.
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Eventually, he got the fish under control, gaffed it and secured it with a rope. Then came the part that somehow sounds even crazier.
He towed the tuna back.
After hours offshore, Hicks dragged the 200-plus-pound tuna behind his jet ski all the way through Oregon Inlet and back to shore, where a crowd had already started to gather.
“It was a moment of relief, truthfully. Next thing you know, there’s 30 people on the beach wanting to take pictures of my fish,” he said. “The boys picked it up on the beach, we put in a surfboard bag and took it back home to get cleaned.”
The next morning, his body felt it.
“It literally felt like I had just fought Mike Tyson and I lost,” Hicks said.
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Worth it.
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