22-year-old Oaxaca fisherman pulls in some big fish

September 28, 2020

Moncada with the 56-kilo sailfish he caught last week.

A young Oaxaca fisherman proved last week that age is no barrier to skill, catching three enormous sailfish, each weighing more than 49 kilograms.

According to Field and Stream magazine, the world record for the largest sailfish ever caught is 100 kilograms. It was landed in Ecuador in 1947.

David Moncada, a 22-year-old from Puerto Escondido, caught the three sailfish last Wednesday and Thursday. The three fish weighed 49, 50 and 56 kilos each, the last fish being a personal sailfish record for Moncada.

Moncada, who comes from a family of commercial fishermen, is as comfortable with using the rod and reel as with simply using bare fishing line in his hand.

While his fishing trophies include impressive marlin — his own personal best marlin catch was a blue marlin that weighed just over 208 kilos — he also loves fishing for sailfish and dorado, which he seeks out for their size and coloring.

The Oaxaca fisherman with a dorado, or mahi-mahi.

After spending his youth on his father’s fishing boat, Moncada now boasts his own boat, the Cristal, which provides him with a living.

“I like just as much to go out looking for tuna,” he said. “This year it went very well for me, and I caught a total of a half-tonne of tuna just fishing by myself.”

On another occasion, Moncada said he caught 523 skipjack tuna in one go, catching them one after another using four fishing lines tied to his boat and two rod-and-reel setups.

Nevertheless, he is also an assiduous competitor in Puerto Escondido’s sportfishing tournaments, which is perhaps not surprising given that Moncada’s father, José Luis Moncada Sánchez, is also a recognized fisherman and frequent judge at various sportfishing tournaments in Oaxaca. David soon followed in his footsteps.

One event that probably clinched Moncada’s decision to become a fisherman like his father came when he was just 11 years old: he and his father fought a memorable battle on his father’s fishing boat to land a 305-kilo marlin.

A photo of him and his father showing off the catch at the time shows David proudly holding onto the fish that probably equaled father and son’s combined weights three times over.