INTERVIEW: ‘Catching Monsters’ follows Atlantic bluefin tuna competition

Competitive fishing has taken over reality television, with audience members hooked on watching the largest fish of the ocean and rivers getting hooked by professional anglers. The latest is Catching Monsters, set to premiere 10 p.m. Friday, June 5 on the Discovery Channel. Charting the travails of Atlantic bluefin tuna fishers in the North Atlantic, the show displays a cutthroat competition among captains on the choppy water.

Captain Matt Panuszka, speaking right after baiting up for a crab fishing trip, landed the TV gig after a couple of Skype interviews with the production company. The cameras arrived last summer to film him and his crew as they plied the waters off the coast of Canada.

The captain said he used to fish lobster, but recently he’s become more involved in off-shore crabbing. “There’s a little bit more money in it for myself and also for my crew,” Panuszka said during a phone interview. “Kind of everybody makes more money. … I have another crab season that I fish in the summer. That’s in-shore crab. It’s the same species, but it’s divided up into zones. And then I fish halibut some time in the middle there. I do a couple of trips for halibut, and then I go after the tuna.”

The fisherman said anytime he has a “good catch” on the end of the line, it’s exciting. However, angling for tuna is “obviously the most exciting.”

“I mean it’s just nonstop adrenaline,” he said. “From the time you hook them to the time you reel them, I mean it’s just awesome. My second favorite would probably be the halibut because they could be over 100 pounds. … But right now we just had a really good crab catch the last time we went out, and that was really exciting. I love the fish. I love my job, so that’s cool.”

It has been more than a decade since Panuszka started fishing tuna. Back in the early 2000s it was open season until the area’s quota was filled. He would start in early August and work his way into November sometimes. He said that in those early days it was tougher to find tuna; today it’s much easier, but there’s a catch (pun intended). The regulations in 2015 only allow for one tuna per year (perhaps this could change two tuna). “Things have changed a lot,” he said.

He added: “Also when we’re fishing under our commercial fishing license, we’re not allowed to release anything, so we have to just try to look for the biggest fish. But once we do get a bite, whatever fish that happens to bite is the one, if we get him to the boat, that’s the one we have to keep.”

Although the captain seemed reluctant to share his bait strategy, he did admit to using mackerel and herring to hook the monsters. Most of the time the bait is live; however, on occasion it’s dead. “It just kind of depends on what the tuna are feeding on at the time,” he said. “We just try to feed them what they’re already eating.”

Because he’s only allowed to pull in one tuna per season, Panuszka said his tuna fishing can end in one day. “If you’re only able to catch one, and you go out there and catch him, that’s it,” he said. “But that’s why I got into the chartering. I love fishing tuna, and I have a separate license that’s a chartering license. And so once I catch my keeper; then I take people out to fish. We have to release the tuna, but we still get to catch him, catch and release him. And I use the chair, and it’s really a lot of fun. And, you know, it’s also a lot of fun to take people that have never done it before, never done any kind of real fishing, and then get them out there on a tuna. It renews the excitement over again.”

The North Atlantic, like other areas of the ocean, is a fierce, competitive playing field.

“Obviously, back in the old days, back when it used to be go fish as much as you could, it was a competitive fleet quota,” he said. “So once the quota was caught up, it was done. Everybody had to stop, right. But there was no limits on the individual, so it became very, very competitive.”

Panuszka, who was born in Florida and moved to Canada when he was 10, is competitive as well. He likened the activity to playing professional sports. “I feel like if you’re not a competitive person, commercial fishing is probably not for you,” he said.

He’s been fishing for decades as well: “Literally my first word was ‘fish.’ My dad sent pictures of me casting a fly rod when I was like just less than 3, like 2-1/2 years old. I mean I love it.”

His father switched careers from photography to fishing after the move to Canada, and the young Panuszka followed in his footsteps. “So he got into commercial fishing, and in 1991, when I was 12, I started as his helper, as his first mate,” he said. “And we started in the summertime hand lining, ground fishing and landing cod fish, and I kind of never looked back.”

Now audience members can follow the ups and downs of the captain and his competitors on the new Discovery Channel show.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Catching Monsters airs 10 p.m. Friday, June 5 on Discovery Channel. Click here for more information.