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Angler Lands Biggest Wahoo Ever in Southern California Waters

An 84-pound wahoo is big anywhere but particularly for a state that, until this year, has never seen a wahoo swimming off its coast.
wahoo

wahoo

Alex Dupre’s 84.3-pound history-making wahoo

Alex “Fishmon” Dupre, of Dana Point, California, left Dana Point Harbor at 5 a.m. this past October 26, hoping for any of the usual big-game suspects that Southern California waters offer this time of year — swordfish, thresher, mako, maybe a striped marlin.

He headed for a special place his father told him about when he commercially fished for swordfish.

“When I arrived, the ocean temperature was an amazing 72.8 degrees. Birds were everywhere,” Dupre told SF, reaffirming the unprecedented warm water temperatures that moved in off the Southern California coast this fall.

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Hopeful, the angler set out lines. After trolling for about 40 minutes, a reel went off as something ran like hell — but not for long. A quick cutoff ensued.

Dupre retied and resumed trolling. He was promptly cut off again. And again — twice more.

“So that night, I re-rigged my lures with wire,” said Dupre. He headed out the next morning, “more determined than ever to catch this mystery fish in the waters south of Dana Point.”

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Dupre put out lines where his GPS told him he’d gotten cut off the day before. Within an hour, his “Talica 25 started screaming as line peeled off. I left the boat in gear and frantically reeled in the other poles.”

Just after, the fish began a sizzling run toward the boat, and Dupre quickly headed away to minimize slack line. After about a half-hour, the mystery was solved when he gaffed a real surprise: a wahoo and in fact a big one “even for Cabo.”

As Dupre was hefting the prize in the boat, a glimpse of blue in motion caught his eye. At first, he assumed they were dorado, but “then I realized they were huge wahoo — a wolf pack of six, all of them dwarfing the one on my deck!”

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He managed to hook up two but couldn’t hold either.

Still, he brought in a new state record wahoo that weighed 84.3 pounds — for a state that historically has been far north of the wahoo’s range, making it unknown from state waters until this year. A handful of other wahoo were taken by California anglers this past season, up to about 50 pounds.

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