When full grown albacore swam through - outside of Long Beach

One year, before I started working on the boats - I heard there were big albacore being hooked on the local all day boats out of San Pedro and Long Beach. I immediately got my rods and went on the Liberty - being run by Gary Nordbye. I went on a lot of different rigs that Gary ran - I always enjoyed fishing with him. He was a rough and tumble dude that took no shit from anybody! Anyway, the albacore were outside Horseshoe Kelp, just outside the rigs. We would chase big meatballs of anchovies and flyline an anchovy on 15 and 20 pound gear. We went most of the day chasing various bait balls and had not hooked a single fish. Late afternoon, we slid in another bait ball - five of us in the port corner got bit. These things were mean on light tackle. An hour later there were only two hooked. By the third hour, mine was the only one left. I was using a PT70, Penn 500 loaded with 15# Ande, and a #4 Mustad 92677. It was now dark past 6pm. The fish was straight up and down and coming up slowly. At color the fish looked nothing like any albacore I had caught before. It was simply too big to be an albacore. Well, when we got a really good look at it - sure enough, it was an albacore. The biggest I had ever seen. Stuck two gaffs in and brought it aboard. I was whipped. Back at Queens Wharf, we weighed it on the scale at the fish market. 66 pounds 8 ounces. Holy Shit Batman! I was dumbstruck. I saw CurtW when we weighed it, and he suggested I get it mounted - 'You will never catch one like that again!!!' he said. In retrospect, I should have had it mounted at Lyons/O'Haver. Instead, we ate it. Absolutely the best albacore I had ever eaten!!! I think I might have even had the world record for a day or two? The galley girl on the Mustang - Fran, caught a 70 pound plus fish - that ended up being the record albacore - I think. That fish was definitely one for the books. I'm thinking this was early to mid 1980's.