Hi Dan
first, I have no idea why it is 4/$1 there, here it is $1.19 and $.99 on sale
there are numerous species of tuna but Albacore is the only tuna species that by law can be canned as "white meat", all others such as skipjack and yellowfin are canned as "lightmeat". Albacore are a smaller tuna with an average size of 12 to 20 pounds for jig caught fish. Those fish are 3 to 5 years old. Albacore may live as long as 7 to 8 years and weigh as much as 60 to 90 pounds. Skipjacks are small, averaging 5-10 pounds or so while yellowfin are usually 40-120 pounds and are the ones all of the "dolphin" controversy was over
yellowfin is also what you see in the supermarkets fish counter as "fresh tuna"
what we fish for up here are the giant bluefin tuna
to be legal to sell they have to be 73 inches which is about 240 pounds on average
in the last few years the ones we have caught went from 270 to 800 averageing about 550 pounds
these are used for shashimi (raw) or shusi (raw with sticky rice)
if the quality (high fat and oil) is good
prices vary a lot but as an example on friday, the 33 "Boston" fish sold at the Tokyo Chou market went for an average of 3,847 Yen/Kilo or $16.20 a pound with the top fish at $21.00
at a top Japanese restuarant a 1.50 oz peice could easily run at a price of $300 a pound or more for the top 1% quality
if we sell our fish here we can get from $3 to $20 a pound depending on quality and supply/demand on a given day
if we ship on consignment paying the up front $1500 ish costs for handling and air fare and take a chance on the auction in Japan we often do better
so you can see they ain't making sandwiches for the kids from these fish
the problem for us this year, which began last year, is that the fish have moved to a very different area, about 90-120 miles form our port, mainly because the commercial fleet has fished out the small food fish they feed on up here
even the whales have moved 20 miles south of the normal feeding grounds, although we still see up to 50-100 of them most trips
bluefin fishing here is highly regulated
out total Atlantic quota is about 900 tons of which 300 goes to 5 huge purse seine boats owned by 3 families who have somehow ($$$$$) got the politicians to grant them a this annual gift
they use spotter planes and net as many as 100 fish at one time
another 200-300 tons are harponed by commercial "stickboats" leaving a very small quota for us rod and reel fisherman
conversly off of Spain and in the Med where there are no regulations they take upwards of 40,000 tons every year and just two weeks ago off Japan the seiners took 400 tons in a single day
sadly, as with so many other things, the ecconomic interests of the big companies are destroying the resourse for 99.999% of the people who spend huge $'s to just catch a few fish a year for fun and for sale to pay expenses
now, arn't you glad you asked?
PS
with this forcast we are now not going tomorrow as planned
ANZ081-250330-GULF OF MAINE TO THE HAGUE LINE...GALE FORCE WINDS EXPECTED TUE...
.TONIGHT...NW WINDS 20 TO 25 KT DECREASING TO 15 TO 20 KT BY MORNING. SEAS 4 TO 7 FT...HIGHEST SE. SCATTERED SHOWERS ENDING.
MON...NW TO N WINDS DECREASING TO 10 KT OR LESS. SEAS SUBSIDING TO 3 TO 5 FT.
.MON NIGHT...NE WINDS INCREASING TO 15 TO 20 KT OVER N PORTION AND TO 20 TO 30 KT OVER S PORTION. SEAS 4 TO 6 FT...EXCEPT BUILDING TO 6 TO 10 FT OVER S PORTION. RAIN...DRIZZLE...AND FOG DEVELOPING
OCCASIONALLY LOWERING VSBY BELOW 1 NM.
.TUE...NE WINDS INCREASING TO 20 TO 30 KT...EXCEPT TO 35 KT OVER S
PORTION. SEAS BUILDING TO 6 TO 10 FT...EXCEPT TO 10 TO 14 FT OVER S
PORTION. RAIN...DRIZZLE...AND FOG OCCASIONALLY LOWERING VSBY BELOW 1 NM. |
