His Catch Is One for the Books

Curt Wiesenhutter’s name is already in the Guinness Book of World Records. On April 1, 1977, he caught a 388-pound 12-ounce yellowfin tuna in the waters of the San Benedicto Islands in Mexico to set an all-tackle record.

Eleven days ago, Wiesenhutter almost let another world-record yellowfin get away. In fact, he almost gave it away.

Wiesenhutter, a landscape contractor from Bellflower, felt a tug on his 130-pound test line the morning of Feb. 8. He was with 15 other fishermen on the eighth day of a 19-day boat trip aboard the Polaris Supreme, sent from Fisherman’s Landing in Point Loma.

“When I started battling with it, I didn’t think the fish was that big,” said Wiesenhutter, 44, who returned to Point Loma Thursday. “This one guy had never caught a big one. I thought this one was all right in size, but not that big. So I almost gave it to him.”

But Wiesenhutter held on--for 2 1/2 hours. And he came up with a 357-pound 6-ounce yellowfin, a world record for a 130-pound test line.

“All I can really say is that I’m lucky,” Wiesenhutter said. “This one was totally different from the other (record). I worked up a real sweat bringing this one in. The other world-record fish was easier because it kind of just leaped right on the boat.”

Wiesenhutter’s latest record fish was caught off Clarion Island, about 400 miles southwest off the southern tip of Baja California.

“After I was fighting it for about an hour, a couple of the crew members on the boat made a bet that the fish wasn’t bigger than 200 pounds,” Wiesenhutter said. “Then, after another hour, the same guys were betting that it wasn’t bigger than 300 pounds. None of us could see it because it was dark out.”

Five people helped pull the fish aboard at about 7 a.m., Wiesenhutter said. It was officially weighed Thursday afternoon.

And, as his parents shot home movies and spectators crowded around to get a look at the big fish, Wiesenhutter attempted to put the catch in perspective.

“I’d say that’s about 1,000 cans of tuna right there,” he said.