A TUNA HELPER FOR THANKSGIVING: Life is good aboard Life is Good (PHOTOS)

There will be plenty of tuna to go around.

Capt. Ben Levi and the crew aboard the Life is Good came in late Tuesday evening with a huge haul.

Capt. Levi with Capt. Mike Hinze and boat owner Martin Peake pulled in two big-eye tuna and a yellowfin tuna for a grand total of 420 pounds.

“It’s going to be a Thanksgiving tuna,” Capt. Levi said.

“Cranberry and tuna,” Peake chimed in.

To see more photos of the tuna trio, click here.

The three left Monday morning and came in Tuesday evening with the tuna.

Because it was late when they got in Tuesday, they brought the fish back down to the docks Wednesday morning at Fishing Fleet Marina to get a weight on each of the tuna.

Just getting the tuna off the boat was an ordeal and took the efforts of three guys and a cart to roll the fish over to the scales.

The first to go up on the scales was one of the big-eye tuna. It tipped the scales at 151 pounds. Hinze was the angler on the big-eye.

The second on the scales was the yellowfin, which was caught by Peake. It was one-pound shy of 100 pounds.

Peake said he fought the yellowfin for about 20 minutes.

“It was a warm up for the other one,” Peake said.

Capt. Levi said they were fishing about 145 miles out when they caught the yellowfin.

“We were trolling a ballyhoo ... and it just crashed it,” Peake said. “He ran probably five to eight minutes just pulling out line. Then he went straight down.”

The next fish hoisted on the scales was the “other one” that Peake referred to.

It tilted the scales at 170 pounds and measured 63 inches long. Peake caught it on a 50 wide Penn reel in about an hour.

When the fish took the bait, “I just grabbed the 50 wide,” Peake said. “He took line for about three or four minutes. I was just fighting with a bucket harness, standing up.”

Just seconds after Peake picked up his rod, the other rod bent over.

Hinze picked up the 80 wide and his bigeye fight was on.

“They hit within five seconds of each other ... boom, boom,” Hinze said.

Peake got his bigeye tuna to the boat first in about an hour, then Hinze hauled his in about 20 minutes later.

Capt. Levi said it was about 1 o’clock Tuesday afternoon when they hooked the two big-eye tuna about 120 miles out.

“We hit a bunch of rigs until we found them,” Levi said.

In addition to the tuna, they caught a dolphin, and a couple of wahoo. The two big-eye were last on the list and filled the box.

Peake docks his boat at Grand Harbor in Destin.

To read and see the catches of the day aboard the New Florida Girl's American Spirit, click here. 

To read about how the season is shaping up for the charter fleet, click here.