A wicked fish tale; Nichols grad hooks fame on TV show.

• Author: Lee, Brian
• Position: Local

Byline: Brian Lee

DUDLEY -- Nichols College administrative assistant Kelli Miller gave her cellphone to a colleague and posed with Tyler McLaughlin, a recent graduate who is now a 26-year-old, tuna-catching prodigy on a popular reality TV series.

The employee said her husband would get a kick out of the photo.

"He won't allow me to turn the channel,'' Mrs. Miller said.

It was a scene that played out over and over, as the winner of Season 2 of the National Geographic Channel's "Wicked Tuna'' returned to campus for the first time since graduating in 2011.

On the series, contestants compete in searching for and catching elusive bluefin tuna. A prized catch can bring in up to $20,000.

Mr. McLaughlin is also on Season 3 of the Gloucester-based show, which is airing now.

He is also part of the recently filmed spinoff, "Wicked Tuna -- North vs. South,'' in North Carolina.

The addition of Southern boats and enhanced clashing, he said, might make it more popular than the original show.

Mr. McLaughlin said he was excited to see some of his professors and tennis coaches, along with a couple of students he knew.

Sodexo Dining Services, the campus's food-service provider, welcomed Mr. McLaughlin and featured a seafood extravaganza around his visit during lunch at Lombard Dining Hall. Red's Best of Boston offered bluefin tuna and a sushi station to showcase fresh, sustainably sourced seafood.

After graduation, Mr. McLaughlin bought a 35-foot, single-engine Donelle fishing vessel and named it the PinWheel. He has been a commercial fisherman ever since.

He was 23 when he started on the show as its youngest captain.

Mr. McLaughlin began to fish when he was 2 aboard his father's boat, "The Pacifier.'' Fishing trips were the only thing that would keep him quiet, he said.

As a youngster, Mr. McLaughlin said he had the opportunity to work with good captains, and he began to excel. He either won or was runner-up in a number of 75-boat tournaments in Maine.

He said the biggest tuna he caught was 1,269 pounds and 124 inches in Massachusetts in October 2011.

"I'm a top-five producer in the East every year,'' he said. "The four guys producing what I'm producing are twice my age.''

The show's producers, who interviewed hundreds of fisherman, heard about Mr. McLaughlin but couldn't catch up to him initially during the summer of 2012, he said.

"I didn't know they were interviewing for a show,''...