'Wicked Tuna's Dave Carraro Is Living His Best Life Both Ashore and at Sea

Did you know Dave Carraro makes his girlfriend sleep in the garage? OK, we’re pretty sure he was joking about that, but there’s a lot more to know about this FV-Tuna.com captain than what you see on the National Geographic reality series Wicked Tuna.

That said, Wicked Tuna fans do know that Dave is a force to be reckoned with. He had the top earnings in Season 2 and in Season 9, and he’s currently ranked No. 3 in Season 10, according to Wicked Local. 

Keep reading for more details about Dave’s life on and off the water — including who he's dating.

Dave’s Cuda Products bio touts that he has 32 years of fishing experience — and that he has fished not only on the East Coast but in Mexico and the Bahamas, too.

His best year, according to the bio, was 2011, when he landed 52 giant tuna, with eight of those fish tipping the scales at more than 1,000 pounds. The year prior, he reeled in 41 giants and more than 50 medium tuna.

As Dave told Hollywood Soapbox in a 2015 interview, he grew up in New Jersey close to the water, and he’d earn money after school cleaning buckets at the docks and eventually going out on charter boats.

Nowadays, he has a charter business of his own, but at the time of that interview, he was fully booked. “Any of the emails that I do get about people inquiring about going out on the Tuna.com for a charter, I basically copy and paste an email to them saying, ‘Sorry, we’re full for the season,’ and I recommend them to a couple other boats that are nearby in the Gloucester area.”

Dave said that Wicked Tuna has brought “a lot of opportunity” for him — and, presumably, some solid paychecks — but he doesn’t necessarily need his reality TV fame.

“I was OK before the show, and I’ll be just as OK after the show is over,” he told Hollywood Soapbox. “I’m not a money-oriented person. I’m happy doing what I do, and that’s fishing. There’s nothing that’s going to change. I’m content. I love to fish, and I’ll do it until my health no longer allows. Nothing is going to change after the show. After we all disappear, fade away, and Wicked Tuna is really just a vague memory for most, I’ll continue doing what I’m doing.”

As public Facebook photos reveal, Dave is in a relationship with someone named Jess Boardway. Jess doesn’t have much information public on her Facebook profile, but she uploaded pics with Dave as far back as August 2016. 

And in July 2020, they became a family of three — as Jess and Dave posed with a new dog. “Meet Calvin!” Jess wrote at the time.

And Dave referenced Jess on Twitter in April 2018 when he tweeted, “You have no idea how bad I really am … twice as bad in real life. My girlfriend sleeps in the garage.” (We assume he was kidding!)