When Stefan Turko first set his sights on catching a bluefin from a kayak, even he wasn’t sure it was possible. He’d caught big fish from his kayak before—massive red drum and cobia—but this was different. This was a fish that outweighed the kayak itself. There were no tutorials, no YouTube videos to guide him, and no playbook to follow. Just an idea, a drive to push limits, and a whole lot of preparation.
Hooked Young, Hooked for Life
Stefan’s love of fishing started early. As a kid growing up in the outer banks, he’d spend beach fishing trips with his family and was mesmerized by the bait fish they would put in a bucket for him, he’d sit and play with them all day. He vividly recalls learning the hard way that bluefish have teeth—an early lesson that didn’t scare him off, but only deepened his fascination with the creatures of the sea.
As he got older, fishing became less of a family pastime and more of a personal pursuit. His older brother, Quintin, got his driver’s license first, and together they started exploring the water in kayaks. Boats were expensive, and their dad had always encouraged doing things the hard way. That hard way soon became the preferred way.
“People still invite me out on boats,” Stefan said, “but honestly, I’d rather be on the kayak. It’s peaceful. The fish don’t even know you’re there.”
The Blueprint for the Impossible
Over the winter and into early spring, rumors of bluefin tuna within a mile of shore started circulating. Stefan saw a Facebook video of fish blowing up near Jenette’s Pier—an exciting glimpse, but nothing concrete. Still, the seed had been planted.
He spent the next few days obsessively preparing to catch a bluefin from a kayak. Safety came first: wetsuit, dive knife, backup life jackets, a full phone charge, and mental checklists of emergency plans. Then came the drag setup—a homemade contraption using carabiners and buckets to slow his kayak during the inevitable “sleigh ride” a hooked bluefin tuna would bring.
He also rigged a buoy system to float a landed fish instead of letting it drag the kayak down. He even brought along a childhood baseball bat—his “fish bonking bat”—as part of the mission critical gear.
Not everyone was convinced. “Dude that’s stupid,” some friends told him. “You’re underestimating how strong these fish are.” But Stefan still believed and the saltwater instincts to trust that it could be done.
Chaos, Calm, and First Contact
On the morning of the attempt, the swell had dropped to a manageable two to three feet, and a light offshore wind was in his favor. He launched alone before sunrise, said a prayer, and the journey had begun as he kicked out and set up his first troll. The first hour passed with no signs of life. Then, just as hope began to fade, he saw them.
Four or five bluefin erupted from the surface 40 yards away. He scrambled to reel in his trolling bait, trying to get in position. But by the time he reset, they had vanished—then reappeared 500 yards away.
He called a buddy on a nearby boat. “They’re jumping everywhere,” his friend confirmed. The adrenaline was back.
Stefan hooked four fish that day. The first one crushed his NLBN swim bait within ten feet of the kayak, its massive purple mouth shrinking his bait as it engulfed it, stained into his memory forever. It was a wild six-to-eight-minute fight before the main line snapped. Still, he had proof—GoPro footage and the electric rush of knowing it was possible.
The Breakdowns and the Breakthrough
Stefan’s setup to catch a bluefin from a kayak was solid, but not perfect. He started the day with 40-pound braid, which turned out to be too light. After losing a second fish to a failed FG knot and a third to another line break, he went ashore, limping with leg cramps, hungry and dehydrated but fired up.
He re-spooled with 65-pound braid, loaded up on fresh jig heads and swim baits, and returned to the water. It was already afternoon. Many fish had come and gone by then—but they hadn’t all left.
As the sun dipped lower, he spotted a lone bluefin moving steadily north, blowing up closer and closer with each pass. One cast. A slow fall. A few pops. And then, as if straight out of a Hemingway novel, his line came tight and the fourth and final battle had begun.
This time, everything held. The fish bolted toward a sea buoy but veered away just in time. Stefan deployed the clever drag system, his buckets, sat back, and settled into the fight, which soon turned into a grueling test of his endurance.
“It was brutal,” he said. “Fighting a fish like that from a kayak isn’t comfortable. Your back hurts. Your forearms are on fire. But I wasn’t letting go.”
For 25 grueling minutes, the fish pinwheeled beneath him. Then, suddenly, it surfaced. Stefan saw its full size and had one thought: “This fish is way too big.” But he was in it now. He gaffed the tuna near the eye—a lucky shot that seemed to stun it. He dragged it in close, picked up the bat, and delivered a few solid whacks to finish the fight.
He tied it off to the kayak with a buoy line. That’s when the full weight of the moment hit him. “I just did this,” he remembers thinking. “I really did this.”
Soaking It In
As he paddled slowly back to shore, Stefan cried a little, prayed a little, and bled the fish out properly. He knew it would make the meat taste better. But mostly, he was just soaking in a feeling unlike anything he’d ever experienced. “God went above and beyond for me out there,” he said.
Later, he immortalized the moment with a gyotaku-style fish print of the tuna’s tail—his first ever—and saved it as a keepsake. He has the photos, the GoPro footage, and the bat still dented from backyard baseball and now, a bluefin tuna.
“I Don’t Think I’d Change a Thing”
Looking back, Stefan says he wouldn’t do it any differently. Not the broken line, not the lost fish, not the exhaustion or doubt. “If I had landed the first one, it would have been amazing. But the struggle made it better. More real. More earned.”
The only thing he’d change? “I wish my brother had been out there with me.”
As for what’s next, that’s hard to say. Friends joke he’ll have to top it with a marlin. But Stefan isn’t rushing it. “After this,” he said, “I feel like my year’s already made.”
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Stefan Turko’s bluefin from a kayak catch is expected to debut on YouTube soon. You can follow his content on his channel under his name ‘stefanturko3987’ and on social media at ‘stefanturko’.
