INTERVIEW: Captain TJ Ott is after some bluefin glory on ‘Wicked Tuna: Outer Banks’

Photo: Captain TJ Ott is a common presence on both Wicked Tuna and Wicked Tuna: Outer Banks. Photo courtesy of PFTV/Kyle Haggerty / Provided by Nat Geo press site with permission.

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The waters are warm. The sun is blazing. The competition is fierce. The fishing is highly competitive.

It’s all in a day’s work on Wicked Tuna: Outer Banks, the hit series on National Geographic that follows competitive bluefin tuna anglers in the waters off the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Season six of the spinoff series (Wicked Tuna, the main show, is still going strong and recently wrapped its eighth season) airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on National Geographic. On the show, captains from the colder waters of Gloucester, Massachusetts, head down to North Carolina to ply their trade off the coast of North Carolina, battling some of the local captains who know these waters better than anyone.

One of the fan favorites is Captain TJ Ott, who cuts through the currents on the Hot Tuna vessel, taking on such competitors as Captain Tyler McLaughlin of the Pinwheel and Captain Dave Carraro of the FV-Tuna.com. Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Ott about the new season of Wicked Tuna: Outer Banks. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.

Without giving away too many secrets, what can audiences expect on the new season of Wicked Tuna: Outer Banks?

Lots of fresh new faces. Lots of rough weather. Much bigger fish than normal for the Outer Banks. With Tyler, it’s still just him and his sister. But the biggest thing is, it’s all new southern boats, which is a pretty big thing. The southern cast is completely new. There’s a really small boat in the float. There’s a lot of rough weather. It’s going to be extremely action packed, let me say that.

How difficult is it fishing the waters off the Outer Banks?

They’re both difficult in their own way. In Gloucester, we have a big, open harbor, which is very easy to access. In the Outer Banks, we have these bridges. You have to get under the bridge safely. Once you get under the bridge safely, you have to get across the outer bar, which constantly can be breaking waves. Once you get out to the grounds you’re fishing in the Gulf Stream, where you’ve got 4-5 knots of tide … any kind of wind makes it extremely rough extremely quick. It’s also winter time. When we fish in Gloucester it’s the summer time. All these things mixed together make it much more difficult.

What’s going through your mind when you hook a big fish?

Everyone is different. For me the adrenaline starts going, and basically you want to catch it. You’re doing everything in your power to stay focused and make sure you don’t make any foolish mistake to contribute to the loss. Hooks are going to pull, lines are going to break, stuff like that is going to happen. You’re going to lose fish because of just tackle failure, but you don’t want to do something like run the fish over, get tangled up in someone else’s gear, get tangled up in lobster gear. As long as everyone on the boat does their job, all you can hope for is you get your tackle holds together. 

Do you like having the TV cameras around filming your every move?

I don’t mind it. In the beginning it was weird, but now, I enjoy it. I enjoy my cameraman for one. If you didn’t enjoy the guy you had on the boat, it would be a different story. I’ve been fortunate where a lot of my camera guys have become good friends, who I’ve stayed in touch with. We’re out on the sea sometimes four, five days with these guys. You’ve got to be kind of a unit, a family. I enjoy it. I enjoy showing the world what we do. Sometimes I can become jaded with fishing; I lose my passion for it sometimes, but then when I watch it on the show, it reminds me of why it’s so amazing and why I do it.

That’s why I think it’s so fascinating that the show has taken off the way it has. People around the globe feel a connection to us; they feel like they’re almost on the boat with us. Just because I’ve been catching these big bluefin since I was a little kid, that doesn’t mean many people around the world have. It’s been a blessing; it’s been a lot of fun.

When did you first fall in love with fishing?

I was a kid. I fished with my father, my grandfathers, my uncles. I had a little Boston whaler. I was fishing bluefish, striped bass and fluke. I grew up on this little island outside New York City, and I always loved fishing, all types of fishing. My father would bring me to the Florida Keys, Key West, which is where I spend most of the year now.

But once I started going bluefin at an early age — 10, 11, 12 years old — once I saw these fish and how strong they were, it was almost like the mountain, the absolute mecca of fishing. That’s really when I got completely hooked. I love all sorts of fishing — bait-tackle fishing in Key West, bottom fishing for groupers and snappers, sail fishing — the bluefin is just a whole other level. I think unless you’ve actually done it, you’ve lived it, it’s hard to really understand what I’m talking about. But there’s been no one that enjoys fishing that goes bluefinning and sees one of these fish caught, that isn’t instantly hooked and infatuated with it.

Is the competition as fierce as the series makes it out to be?

The competition is definitely as fierce, no doubt about it. Some guys definitely take it to another level. I am somewhat of a competitive person … but I enjoy everything in life. I enjoy my family. I don’t like to see people fail. So even though some of these guys are my competition, I like to see everyone successful and everyone happy.

There are some guys on the show that are just completely obsessed with it. It’s very, very much real. At the end of the day, I want to win as much as everyone, but I don’t let it consume me. … There are a couple of new additions to the fleet down south that are out doing stupid shit, that I know normally they probaby wouldn’t. I know it’s because of the competition. They want to win that badly that they go out on days where they should be at the docks for breakfast. They’re out there risking their lives. It’s not for a tuna fish; it’s because they want to win. It’s not for a paycheck for a tuna fish; it’s because they want to win top boat.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Wicked Tuna: Outer Banks airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on National Geographic. Click here for more information.