Captain David Carraro of ‘Wicked Tuna’

Celebrity Q&A, Featured Article
on February 18, 2013
US - 9273 NGCI - 040578
Gloucester, MA - Tuna.com Owner/Captian Dave Carraro on his boat.
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What can you tell me about Capt. Dave Carraro from “Wicked Tuna”?
—Marvin Colfer, Minneapolis, Minn.

The funniest thing we can tell you about the good captain is he doesn’t eat seafood. In fact, he hates it.

He says, “In 33 years of fishing, I’ve never had it.” So how does he know he hates it? “People trick me into eating it. As soon as I eat it, I know.”

Carraro, 47, who fishes the East Coast, the Bahamas and Mexico, says his story is a common one. He began fishing with his dad in a pond, and “after I caught my first fish, I was hooked. Here I am 33 years later doing it almost every day. It is a passion. It’s what I love to do.”

The owner of the “FV-Tuna.com” fishing vessel, Carraro, who caught his first bluefin tuna when he was 7, holds a USCG 100-ton Masters License. His best haul was in 2011 when he landed 52 giant tuna—using just a rod and reel.

“Bluefin tuna is the most amazing fish in the world. Just for the beauty of them, the sheer size,” he says. “Most people don’t know that the fish we catch on rod and reel weigh 800 to 1,000 pounds. It’s an amazing fish to watch us hunt and fight to capture them.”

Carraro and the crew of the “FV-Tuna.com” had to audition for “Wicked Tuna” by sending in a homemade video answering questions provided by the National Geographic Channel, but he feels it was worth it if they can make people understand how important it is to preserve the bluefin tuna as a species. Today’s bluefin tuna stocks are only one-quarter of what they were in 1950.

“We do not over-fish them here in the United States,” says the Middletown, N.J., native. “We have the strictest regulations of any nation in the world. One line, one hook, one fish at a time as opposed to the rest of the world where they use big nets and they basically harvest an entire school in one set. I think this show is a great way to show the world how we fish here and why they should follow. What we do here is a very sustainable fishery and no one can argue that.”