Honey I shrunk the bluefins!

[DarkSkies]

I hope people aren't turned off by the title this time.

I was looking for something shocking, catchy, compelling, that would draw people into researching what I and more experienced anglers have known for years...that the great bluefin tuna that many of us grew up reading about, are rapidly dwindling in size.

How did this happen?

Whose fault is it?

It's those damn Japanese, isn't it??

We should keelhaul the bastids and make them walk the plank!

What right do they have to decimate our fish!

How selfish!

Who do they think they are anyway?

[DarkSkies]

I think it's been a combination of factors. We all look for a scapegoat when something bad is happening. We want to point that finger, and hang someone out to dry.

Surely that will solve our problem, or at least make us feel better about it.

That's part of the American agenda, look for the scapegoat, our reality based TV shows are full of that premise.

How about we look inward and blame ourselves, at least partially, for not minding the store?

I'm going to try to paint a small picture for you people out there. What I'm doing here isn't unique, it's all been said and done before.

One small twist: I have an agenda.

My agenda is to try to show people through examples in the tuna fishing, and tuna industry, how the decreasing size of giant bluefins was a mistake could have been prevented.

In much the same way, I will try to show people out there how our Federal Fisheries Management practices for Striped bass have led to similar mistakes that could have been prevented.

If I can do that, and confess in the beginning that I have this agenda, I'm hoping enough people will join me for awhile in this thread to get a few more people out there to look at things differently.

If I can get just one more person to think about things and investigate these issues independently, I will have succeeded at my mission to help educate people, one at a time.

[DarkSkies]

If people really want to get an overview rather than just listening to me, I strongly encourage you to go out and buy this book. Or look for it at your local library. Find some way to read it, it's invaluable for understanding how things can be ignored until it's too late.

Tuna

A Love Story, by Richard Ellis.

Published by Random House, and available here:

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/d...3&view=excerpt


Here's an exerpt which I'll use for illustrative purposes. My hope also is that some of you will be intrigued enough to go out and buy this book.


**********************



SPORT FISHING FOR TUNA

Around 1496, Wynkyn de Worde, one of the first printers in England,printed the Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle, which was basedon even earlier treatises on “fysshynge.” Izaak Walton published The Compleat Angler in 1653, inspiring a vast number of his fellow Englishmen to take up fishing. But no matter how much they enjoyed the sport, they still ate the fish they caught. Since Walton’s day, however, the art and science of fishing often took precedence over the number and size of the catch that the fisherman brought home to feed his family. Thus did salmon and trout fishing–particularly in England–develop into pastimes suitable for gentlemen, along the lines of fox hunting or bird shooting. The conquest of a fox or a pheasant might require a certain degree of skill and courage, but for the most part, what were needed were a few dogs, a proper kit, and privacy and space enough to engage in these patrician pursuits.

.... But because some fish were so large and so powerful that their capture required more than a little skill (and often a lot of expensive equipment, sometimes including a big boat), the idea of big-game fishing was born.
...This new sport was dashing, daring–and expensive. And for those who could afford it, there was a need of a base suitable to the tastes of the elite.” The idea of catching fish that you had no intention of eating–fishing for sport, in other words–is a very recent development, and probably to some extent based on the great billfishes. They certainly are edible, but fight takes precedence over fillets, and the idea of eating a thousand pounds of fish might be a little daunting to any but the most intrepid (or hungry) angler.

In Van Campen Heilner’s 1953 history of saltwater fishing, we learn:


The first sportsman to test the quality of Nova Scotia tuna... was Thomas Pattilo, a schoolmaster, who tackled them from a dory in Liverpool harbor in 1871....


On Pattilo’s second attempt–presumably with the same gear-he brought to gaff a six-hundred-pound bluefin. In 1908, Commander J. K. L. Ross came to Cape Breton Island in pursuit of these monster mackerel, and although he managed to hook twenty-two of them during the season, he lost every one. The following year, he hooked one that towed him all over the harbor for nineteen hours before “the exhausted sportsman admitted defeat and cut his line.”

Sailors and fishermen who found themselves off the coast of Seabright, New Jersey, in the early decades of the twentieth century were aware that there were some large fish there. They just couldn’t figure out how to catch them. Heilner, who fished there between 1912 and 1916 (with Zane Grey, among others), wrote:


We fished off Seabright out of bank skiffs, sitting on camp chairs, and we gave those giant horse-mackerel some of the finest collection of hooks and lines you ever saw.We could hook them, and that was about all. The rest was fun for the horse-mackerel . . . They looked as big as hogsheads there under the sterns of our dories and some of them ran over a thousand pounds. I saw a fish there one day so big it scared me. I was afraid to put a bait over for fear he’d take it.


On September 13, 1915, wearing a primitive harness, Jake Werthheim hauled in the first New York Bight “horse mackerel,” a monster of 286 pounds. Seven years later, Christian Feigenspan landed a 407-pounder, and that American record stood until Francis Low boated a 705-pounder in 1933.

The big fish then seemed to disappear from New Jersey waters.

According to Al Anderson’s history of the tuna fishery, fishing for giants off New Jersey did not resume until the 1980s.

Captain Al Ristori caught a 1,022-pound fish in 1980 that held the New Jersey record for a little more than a year, when Roy Parsons landed one that weighed eight and one-half pounds more.

The current American record holder is Jim Dempsey, who reeled in a fish of 1,140 pounds off Galilee, Rhode Island, in 1981.

Zane Grey, considered the most macho of big-game fishermen– Grey admired the tuna so much that his writing approximated the fury and excitement of a tuna feeding frenzy.

With Captain L. D. Mitchell, an Englishman who worked in the fishing tackle department of Abercrombie and Fitch in New York, Grey headed for Nova Scotia in 1924.

Near Liverpool, with Mitchell accompanying him in a twenty-foot skiff, he hooked a bluefin and fought it for five hours: “The tuna heaved to the surface, he rolled and gasped, lunged out his huge head with jaws wide and black eyes staring– a paralyzing sight for me. Then he wagged toward to the bow, his wide back round and large as a barrel, out of the water.” Mitchell called it the “gamest tuna I ever saw or heard of.” Brought to the dock, it measured 8 feet 4 inches in length, 6 feet 2 inches in girth, and weighed 684 pounds. In the prose for which he was famous, Grey described the vanquished fish:


He was built like a colossal steel projectile, with a deep dark blue color on the back, shading to an exquisite abalone opal hue toward the under side, which was silver white. He blazed like the shield of Achilles. From the edge of his gill cover to the tip of his nose was two feet. He had eyes as large as saucers. His gaping mouth was huge enough to take in a bucket. His teeth were like a strip of sand paper, very fine and small. The massive roundness of his head, the hugeness of his body, fascinated me and made me marvel at the speed he had been capable of. What incalculable power in that wide tail! I had to back away to several rods’ distance before I could appreciate the full immensity of him.


Later, Grey hooked another Nova Scotia monster, and described the chase in prose that could have come straight out of Riders of the Purple Sage: “Blue Island seemed a mountain, green on top, black at the sea line, a bleak jagged precipitous shore against which the great swells burst ponderously. The white spray shot high. I saw the green swells rise out of the calm sea and move in majestic regularity to crash and boom into white seething ruin . . . The feeling of the sea under me was something at the moment to take heed of. If I had not been hooked to what must be a gigantic tuna, I would have grown panic-stricken.” This time his brother R.C. and his son Romer were along, and Romer cried out, “Must be a whopper! Don’t work too hard, dad. Don’t let him get away. Don’t give him any rest.” The “whopper” weighed 758 pounds, and Grey rightfully claimed the world’s record for bluefin tuna. As he described it:


I was struck dumb by the bulk and beauty of that tuna. My eyes were glued to his noble proportions and his transforming colors. He was dying and the hues of a tuna change most and are most beautiful at that time. He was shield-shaped, very full and round, and high and long. His back glowed a deep dark purple; his side gleamed like mother-of-pearl in a lustrous light; his belly shone a silver white. The little yellow rudders on his tail moved from side to side, pathetic and reproachful reminders to me of the life and spirit that was passing. If it were possible for a man to fall in love with a fish, that was what happened to me. I hung over him, spellbound and incredulous.


Grey was not only among the first to write about tuna fishing, he was among the first to capture these great-hearted fish.

Another trailblazer was Michael Lerner (1891-1978), a successful businessman who turned an early and avid interest in hunting and fishing into a mature scientific avocation....Michael and Helen Lerner visited the island of Bimini in the 1930s, and by 1936 they had founded the Bahamas Marlin and Tuna Club, with Ernest Hemingway as the first president.

Lerner was also among the first anglers to seek out the giant tuna of Nova Scotia, pioneering the rod-and-reel fishery for giant tuna there in 1935. In eleven days in September 1935, he caught eleven that ranged from 86 to 450 pounds. He was also the principal organizer of the International Game Fish Association (IGFA), which held its first meeting at the American Museum of Natural History on June 7, 1939.

Fishing off Long Island (New York) in the 1920s, Lerner caught a seventy-pound bluefin, and was so impressed with its brawn that he was prepared to devote a good part of his life to the pursuit of big, powerful fishes–including Thunnus thynnus.

In the early thirties, Heilner had set up a primitive fishing camp on the island of Bimini, less than a hundred miles east of Miami, and invited Mike and Helen Lerner to join him. (The Lerners would eventually build a house there, which was subsequently turned into the Lerner Marine Laboratory.) In 1935, Lerner’s tuna fishing off Wedgeport, Nova Scotia, was successful beyond all expectations; in eight days he caught twenty-three fish that weighed a total of 5,536 pounds.

[DarkSkies]

Let me start off by saying I'm not an expert. I know how to read and interpret what I've read so others can understand it better.

At any time if anyone has corrections or more accurate data, please feel free to post up. I and others would appreciate this thread being as factually correct as possible.

In summary....


Giant bluefin were known to be around from the mid 1800s to the 1980's.

They weren't seriously targeted until the 1980's.
(Actually, I remember being a little kid and reading in the Ristori columns in the Star Ledger that they were fishing and catching them in the 1970's. So I'll use that 1970 as a tentative date for the Eastern Seaboard timeline when interest began to ramp up.)

So we'll all agree that giant tuna were targeted and caught since the early 1900s, but only realistically targeted and seriously sought out by increasing numbers of anglers since the 1970's.

This means that from1970 to mid-1980 (last record tuna was caught in 1981 by Jim Dempsey off RI), a period of 15 years or less, was all it took to wipe out the largest tuna.

Tuna that had existed off the Eastern seaboard since the beginning of time, over 200 years according to historical records. And even longer than that if you really think about it.

Wiped out in less than 15 years by overfishing, greed, and Federal mismanagement.

Wow.

[DarkSkies]

You might say:

"Wait a minute there Dark! Surely you're exaggerating to prove your agenda! There are giant tuna swimming out there now, they're catching 600lbers up in PEI and Nova Scotia! How can you make such irresponsible statements. You're talking out of your AZZ!"

My response:

There are tuna that size being caught. But because the fishery is being managed for Maximum sustainable yield (MSY), there are no more 1000 lb fish to be caught in any numbers.

Here's a look at MSY and some fisheries terms so people can better understand them:
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...ead.php?t=5533


You may think I'm exaggerating, people. While I don't deny the POSSIBILITY of there being a few 1000# tuna out there, there aren't many. Otherwise you would see catches that size reported and sold on the world market.

So then we come to the Japanese. Aren't they greedy bastids? Shouldn't we nuke them again? After all, they're still killing whales in the name of research, for Christmas sake!!!

Yes they're doing this, and people need to be aware of the charade they pull on the public by expecting us to swallow that bull they feed us.

But let's look at ourselves.

Since the prices have risen so high on the world market and on the way there, weren't any American charter boat captains secretly catching tuna and covertly bringing them to the Japanese?

Sure there were.


This is the current state of the tuna fishery, another good thread here. It explains the conditions, issues, and state of the current market as the average size of the giant bluefins continues to decline:

http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...ead.php?t=5634


Bluefin tuna path to market as originally posted by Dogfish, thanks.

[storminsteve]

So we'll all agree that giant tuna were targeted and caught since the early 1900s, but only realistically targeted and seriously sought out by increasing numbers of anglers since the 1970's.

This means that from1970 to mid-1980 (last record tuna was caught in 1981 by Jim Dempsey off RI), a period of 15 years or less, was all it took to wipe out the largest tuna.

Tuna that had existed off the Eastern seaboard since the beginning of time, over 200 years according to historical records. And even longer than that if you really think about it.

Wiped out in less than 15 years by overfishing, greed, and Federal mismanagement.

Wow.

Hey Dark, here is a graduate student's research that supports your exact point.




Old Photos Document Dramatic Decline in Trophy Fish Size

February 18, 2009 • 10:04 am

By Adam Monacelli

Loren McClenachan, a graduate student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, estimates that large predatory fish have declined in weight by 88 percent in modern photos compared to black-and-white shots from the 1950s. The average length of sharks declined by more than 50 percent in 50 years, the photographs revealed. Full story.

As an interesting side note, McClenachan mentions in her paper that the price of sport fishing trips has not declined in conjunction with the size and weight of the caught fish. Although trophy fish dropped more than 88 percent in average fish weight, the trip costs remained steady, ranging from $40 to $48 per person (adjusted for inflation), per day between 1956 and 2007.


http://blogs.courierpostonline.com/f...hing-pictures/

[wish4fish]

these guys rape the sea, eff u japs

[voyager35]

I think it's been a combination of factors. We all look for a scapegoat when something bad is happening. We want to point that finger, and hang someone out to dry.

Surely that will solve our problem, or at least make us feel better about it.

That's part of the American agenda, look for the scapegoat, our reality based TV shows are full of that premise.

How about we look inward and blame ourselves, at least partially, for not minding the store?

American greed always has a part to play Dark. It happened with the whiting back in the day as well. The Russians played a large role in decimating the stocks. When they got pushed off, the American draggers took their place until whiting was so cheap because they flooded the markets with it. Now we have hardly any compared to what it used to be.
Look at the cod as well. You can't blame the Russians or Japanese for them. When I was younger we had some incredible cod trips out of Montauk. Cod 20 and 30 lbs were the norm rather than the exception. Cod are now finally starting to come back after they were battered for years by the comms. Good writing, great thread.