On April 1, the 388-pound yellowfin tuna caught by Curt Wiesenhutter will rack up its 40th anniversary as the official IGFA all-tackle record. The longevity of this record is amazing, considering the amount of fishing pressure to best it. The fact that the fish was caught on 80-pound line is another wonder. These days, long range skippers tell anglers that 130-pound line is barely enough for 200-pound tuna, and they shouldn't even consider that puny 100-pound stuff.

Probably no other record has had so many anglers taking their best shot at beating it. Forty years is a long time, but those who were there are still around. Curt still fishes on Poole's boat a couple of times a year. Bill Poole remembers what it was like on his Royal Polaris that night.

"We were at the Lunker Hole (San Benedicto Island) and I was on watch," said Bill as we waited for his Excel to arrive at Fisherman's Landing December 21, "I was on the deck with Curt when he hooked it.

"???What you got?' I asked him, "You got a shark?'"

"???No,' Curt said, "I got a really big tuna!'"

Poole remembered, "I looked over the side, and I saw this really big fish running around with his dorsal fin out of the water. "Larry Ward, who was a dentist in Blythe, now he's in South Africa, one of my hunting buddies, helped me and we stuck the fish, and got his tail up out of the water, but we couldn't do anything with him.

"Once his tail was out of the water, he kind of went into shock. I called Steve Loomis and the crew out, and they got up saying it must be a shark, but then they saw what it was and we got it aboard.

"Another trip down there with Loomis running the boat got ten tuna over 300 pounds. Frank LoPreste took over the boat when Steve came back.

"I was ready to quit the business about then. We had a lot of problems that year. I remember that Ingrid and I hired 13 cooks in one season!

"But I came back," said Poole. "And here I am."

That 388-pounder of Curt Wiesenhutter's is still hanging on the wall at Fisherman's, too. This may be the year a bigger one shows up on the dock though, as a dozen 300-pounders have already been tallied, and we're less than halfway through the big fish season, which will end in June.