Obsessing About The Tuna Fish Again

As you all know I love WICKED TUNA. I can't get enough of those fishing shows. I find that not knowing if they will catch the fish they hook to be unbelievably interesting to watch. I also feel the pain the fishermen feel when they lose a huge tuna so close to the boat.

I also enjoy looking at the tail and core samples and trying to guess how many dollars per pound that the tuna will get from the buyer. I usually guess right (within a dollar or two). I should be an expert after all this time. The tuna I usually see caught are less than 400 lbs. Compare that to the massive 1000 lb. tuna that are found further North in the colder waters of the North Atlantic.

Catching Monsters started it's season and the first episode focused on fishermen who are only allowed to catch ONE giant tuna all season - ONE. That is to preserve these massive examples of how big a tuna can actually get. I just watched a guy catch an 800 lb. fish. Took him six hours to land it. That was his whole season.

Now further South (near Glouster Mass.) such a fish would fetch a price near 20,000 dollars but usually the fish are only a third of a size of the giants. You can catch as many of those smaller tuna if they are bigger than 73 inches. Depending on the quality of the meat, the fisherman can expect between $15 and $20 a pound. That means about $5000 a fish if the are keepers.

The buyer for that 800 lb. monster fish gave the fisherman less than $5000 dollars for a fish three times that size.

Now this means one of two things - the fishermen up North are getting SCREWED by unscrupulous fish buyers earning huge profits on the backs of the guys who actually caught the fish or that the larger fish are less desirable for the Asian sushi market. The Japanese market is the end point for most of the giant tuna that is caught and everyone up the line is making money except for the fishermen.

Maybe the larger fish produce a lower quality tuna roll? Can you tell the size of the fish the sushi came from? Questions like these are keeping me up at night.

Catching an Atlantic Bluefin Tuna—which can grow to the size of a small car—isn't an easy feat. The pursuit to catch the elusive massive fish is the subject of Discovery Channel's latest series, Catching Monsters.

The show, which premieres on Friday, June 5 at 10/9c, follows a group of fishermen who spend six weeks looking to make a fortune by finding the massive fish.

The Bluefin Tuna measures up to 15 feet long, swim 40 miles per hour and weigh 1,500 pounds. Some are worth more than $10,000 and can only be caught after hours of battle.

Fishermen are allowed only one Bluefin Tuna capture per season, in order to avoid over-fishing.