Deerfield, New Hampshire, Woman, Reels in a Monster of a Tuna over Labor Day Weekend

It was a sunny Sunday morning and Sage MacKenzie of Deerfield, New Hampshire, and her boyfriend Ryan Ham were aboard Ryan's boat, the Reel Addiction (I love a boat with a punny name) The day before they headed out of Hampton Harbor and felt some action on their line around 6 pm. Sadly the rascal got away so Sage posted to Facebook asking her friends send some good tuna juju their way. Their plan was to sleep on the boat and wake up bright and early the next day in hopes of redemption. Well, ask and you shall receive!

Around 11 am Sage was in the process of whipping up a PB&J. It's a good thing she had some fuel in her for what happened next! THEY HOOKED UP! No, I am not talking about Ryan and Sage, don't be fresh. This is the phrasing she used. I am guessing "hooked up" is fisherman speak for they hooked something on their line. (people who actually fish, please feel free to correct me)

Anyway, Sage got a major arm workout trying to reel this sucker in. Then Ryan took over while Sage drove the boat in all different directions in order to fight the tuna! Then they harpooned it, (how savage) tied a rope around the tail, and "swam" it behind the boat for about an hour which means the fishy just kind of hung off the back of the boat to get rid of the lactic acid build up. (I learned a lot by talking to Sage. Are you impressed?) The whole ordeal took about three hours from when they hooked the beast to when they finally got him aboard.

So what is Sage's secret to hooking a massive fish like this? They caught him on a squid! Other than that it is just practice, determination, and not minding if your fingers smell a little fishy at the end of the day.

Behold Sage's great catch:

330 lbs whole, 279 lbs dressed, 90"

ALSO it had a big ol' shark bite on the side of it's body. Wanna see?

Gnarly, right?

Sage has been fishing her entire life so it's kind of in her DNA. She grew up fishing on her dad's boat plus her grandma and grandpa were big names in the fishing community. They owned the beloved sporting goods store Suds N' Soda in Greenland where Sage worked for many years!

Sage lost her Grandma last year and she definitely felt her presence on the boat on Sunday. There is no doubt in my mind that Grammy was looking down at Sage and bragging to everyone in heaven, "that's my girl!"