Shore fishing is old school, which is one reason I enjoy it. This spring I caught channel catfish, carp and redhorse suckers from the banks of a nearby small river and had a blast. Anglers around the world share my love of shore fishing, and the species targeted vary widely, from tiny bullheads to massive bluefin tuna.
In the must-see 4-minute YouTube video below, you’ll see Ivan Nastic as he fishes for bluefin tuna in the Adriatic Sea. He often casts from the rocky shorelines and cliffs of Montenegro.
Ivan is using heavy-duty spinning tackle and twitching a popper (photo below) on the surface. When this particular bluefin strikes, Ivan knows immediately that he’s in trouble. He says, “It’s way too big — too big!”
Ivan has landed several bluefin tuna from shore and is confident this fish weighs close to 500 pounds and likely measures 9 to 10 feet. As you’ll see, this tuna kicks Ivan’s butt.
“I didn't really have an adequate response and plan,” he wrote, “so I started behaving like it was regular tuna on the rod. Then short and violent runs started, forward from me and from my side. With a pretty strong and stiff PE12 rod, it was very very hard to keep myself on the rocks. In the end, it resulted with unnecessary running, falling down on the rocks, and the tuna cutting the braid on the rocks.”
Check out the speed and power of this massive tuna. At one point, Ivan realizes he must run along the rocks to keep up with the fish, otherwise it’ll strip all of the line off his reel. And at the 1:38 mark, Ivan takes a nasty fall on the jagged rocks. Ouch!
Somehow Ivan hangs onto the rod and reel, and eventually gets back on his feet to continue the battle. But it’s not a fair fight — not even close.
Watch closely and you’ll see at the 2:55 mark that a friend of Ivan’s helps him secure a fish fighting belt around his waist. But the line is cut on the underwater rocks shortly afterwards.
Ivan — battered and bruised — sums it up well at the video’s conclusion: “Brother, this is not normal.”
