Padecky: Sonoma County men, friend reel in 228-pound bluefin tuna near Farallon Islands

Fishermen have a tendency to exaggerate fish stories for the same reason a NASCAR driver has a tendency to go fast. For the pure fun of it. For the thrill. For the spectacle. For the attention it arouses. Maybe the fish that was caught wasn’t the size of a city bus. Maybe it didn’t fight me like Mike Tyson. Oh well, no one’s perfect.

This is not one of those fish stories. The fun, the thrill, the spectacle, the attention, the sapping of strength, the ache that turned forearms into stone, it was all there and all quite real on March 21, on a chunk of ocean near the Farallon Islands.

One picture is worth a thousand ways to say Holy Mackerel, That Sucker Could Use Me As Bait. It’s a picture of Kevin Kraft reclining next to a 228-pound bluefin tuna. His hands are cupped behind his head. He is smiling, which doesn’t make sense, since the creature next to him is a fish 11 inches longer, about 50 pounds heavier and definitely not smiling.

Tony Marks is a real estate broker and appraiser from Petaluma who that day took his son, Dominic, and Kraft, from Folsom, hunting for tuna on his 26-foot boat. Yes, hunting. This is not the kind of fishing one does standing on a lakeshore casting with a reed-thin pole. That pole would snap like kindling if there was a tuna on the line. The equipment needed to land a tuna is very specific and costly. Just the reel, line and hooks run about $2,000.

“A bluefin tuna is an apex predator,” Marks said. “It can swim faster than a shark or a whale. It is aggressive, unafraid and strong. It eats what it wants to eat.”

Phrased that way, as if Marks was describing the movements and attitude of a mountain lion, he used two words many times throughout the interview, not for shock value. Rather, Marks saw these two words as the only appropriate way to emphasize what the three men were fighting.

“They are thugs,” he said at one moment. “They are brutes,” he would say later. Odd as this may read, the bluefin fights for its life not with an occasional energy regrouping but with an unrelenting push to freedom, intended as much to punish his attackers.

“ I couldn’t do this by myself,” said Marks, 60, a retired firefighter who was a captain with the Santa Rosa department. “That’s why Dominic and Kevin came along.”

For 50 minutes the trio took turns manning the reel, using the side of the boat as a brace. No coffee breaks. No complaints. One is allowed to exclaim, maybe even giving air to a word that doesn’t belong in church. Imagined like that, the word “sportfishing” is defined by those emotions — for it’s a true contest, man against beast, triggering a primordial, ancient memory on how humans made it this far. If that feels basic, guttural — primitive even -so be it.

The pull, the yank, a second for a brief reel back, for 50 minutes, there might not be anything to compare. A Marlin, a legendary fighting fish known for its acrobatics as it leaves the water, gives its captor a second or two of welcome respite, however brief. A bluefin tuna allows no such comfort.

After a time, Marks found himself with an unsettling thought. All three men were struggling, to the point progress was incremental.

“I was wondering if there was something bigger than a tuna,” said Marks, stunned by the resistance they were feeling. It didn’t make sense. They went out there that day tuna fishing. They had their heavy and complicated tuna gear appropriate for the task. They stopped where the fish had been spotted.

What was on the other end of the line? It is the question that attracts all those who fish, the children casting their first line or someone like Marks, who comes from a fishing family. His great grandfather, Luciano Sabella, came to San Francisco from Sicily in 1887 and sold fish at Fisherman’s Wharf for 54 years. Marks has been fishing since he was 14.

Marks is no longer a guppy, so when that curiosity happens — wondering what is at the other end of the tug — he and everyone who has ever dipped a line in the water arches their necks a little bit forward and waits for what could be a surprise. Wonderment binds us all.

And a surprise it was for the men. As the fish first came into view, about a foot below the water, their gasps practically sucked the oxygen out of the air. Moments later, Marks wrapped up the moment nicely.

“ Thank you tuna gods!!” he exclaimed.

Of course there was a slight moment of concern. How to get the damn thing in the boat? Wasn’t like a trout coming aboard. Would it be a smooth evacuation? No, it wouldn’t.

With their gaff hooks holding onto the fish, they pulled and yanked and heaved and then ...

“ We were falling backwards and (after losing their footing) it fell on top of us,” Marks said.“ I realized this monster was going to land on us, but we weren’t going to let up until all of this fish was on the deck. I wish we had this part was on video.”

Ah, but they’ll always have the tuna fillets. And Kevin posing with the catch and Tony thanking the tuna gods. It wasn’t the biggest bluefin ever taken, but it doesn’t have to be. It just has to be so big that the fishermen who caught it were so exhausted they couldn’t get out of the way when it pancaked them. Now THAT’S a fish story you have to believe. Or at least want to.

To comment, write to bobpadecky@gmail.com.