BlueFin Tuna in SA waters

Reading in the latest issue of Ski Boat about SA's early game fishing, a 1950's fight with a 1000pd plus Bluefin Tuna known to the resident fishermen as  "The Sergeant" is described that ends with the hook pulling after the fish had straightened two gaffs.   The story also suggests that those bluefins were overfished to extinction.  Schoeman in his 1950's book Strike, mentions that lots of smaller bluefins would occasionally be caught from places like Rooikrans and giant tuna seen and occasionally hooked

In South Africa we commercially catch the smaller Southern Bluefin. The record for the Southern is 364pd.  The big Bluefins are the Atlantic Bluefins for which the angling record is 1460pd

Does anyone know much about the Atlantic Bluefin in South African waters?  Do we still occasionally catch them or when was the last one caught?  Were they part of the  populations that are found in Canada and the Mediteranean?

Its a tragedy that in SA we seem to have long ago fished into extinction probably the worlds strongest fish!

I saw bluefins from 400lbs to over 700lbs being hooked and landed in Fish Hoek bay during the 1960's, by the game fish boats based at Simonstown, this happend for a couple of seasons then they disappeared never to be seen in False bay again.
I doudt very much that these fish were fished out by the few boats down here that fished for them at the time, but more likly were netted to extintion elsewhere in there migration and ended up in some Tokyo fish market.

It is possibly the fisherman might have hooked Bluefins at Rooikrantz, I know they saw them, but unlikely they ever caught any.
Yellowfin, yes, but Bluefin?

What does the passage in Schoeman's book state.

They were netted by trek fishermen, one was anyway at longbeach Simonstown.

andrewb wrote:

Does anyone know much about the Atlantic Bluefin in South African waters?  Do we still occasionally catch them or when was the last one caught?  Were they part of the  populations that are found in Canada and the Mediteranean?

Its a tragedy that in SA we seem to have long ago fished into extinction probably the worlds strongest fish!

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Hi

I put that exact question to SADSAA's environmental expert, Andrew Penny before he left.

He mentioned the possibility that it was a small group that had a slightly "wrong" migration.

It is very telling that they did not seem to appear anywhere but False Bay.

Biden mentions that they were avoided by linefishers becuase they messed up the gear. (I would guess that it is not the type of fish that you would like to "saag" up on a handline.

Schoeman (in Strike) wrote that small bluefin were the first tuna to be caught @ Rooikranz and it seemed the fish would dissapear for periods and be present in different sizes in different years. Some days hundreds were caught. The big fish would just smash anglers and the first decent size fish landed was a 160pd yellowfin. Bluefin were also caught by the trekkers. I better check all the above though as i dont have the book with me.

BTTB I have unfortunately only fished Rooikranz a couple of times but one angler told me that yellowfin are still occasionally hooked. Have you heard or seen that in the last decade?

JB2 is Biddens book worth getting?

I am currently slowly reading a book on the development of the commercial fishing scene that was published in the early 60's. It says that the original inhabitants around the time of the dutch arrival (not sure of what is the PC name) used to wistle fish closer inshore to be caught. Already by the 1900's people were complaining about diminished stocks!

Im sure one was caught at this years hout bay tuna comp, or one of the false bay comps... originally ID'd as a bigeye

Nope, that one was 130kgs, southern bluefin, not Atlantic, caught on Magoofter, won the GBBAC Classic.
andrewb, not really the SA fishery that has fished out stocks (if we even had them as a stock rather than a temporarily lost biomass) - it is uncontrolled / unpoliced fishing in the spawning zones that did and still does, the damage. Check out Dr. Barbara Bloch's tagging program www.tunaresearch.org.

andrewb wrote:

BTTB I have unfortunately only fished Rooikranz a couple of times but one angler told me that yellowfin are still occasionally hooked. Have you heard or seen that in the last decade?

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Hi Andrew.

Only been fishing the Krantz for a couple of years so I cannot reflect back a decade.
However one day this year, February I think, the boats caught some Yellowfin off The Bellows. Around about that time, give or take a day, one veteran angler with 40 years experience at the Krantz and has actually caught a Yellowfin there many moons ago reckoned he had a swirl or I would rather say a "hole" behind his plug that in his opinion could very well have been a Yellowfin. Another person apparently spotted from high up where the visibility is good something very large follow someone's plug on the same day.

So who knows, as without the proof it could very well have been a large Yellowtail or something else.

Regards,
BTTB.

I once saw a documentary on the bluefin tuna. It's a fish that can get scary big as in 100'ds of kg's and defenately not the kind of thing you can catch on a hand line unless you plan to chum body parts.

If I remember right they also have a double nervous system, one that works in deep water and one that works shallow.

The result is if you tire it in the deep water and it get shallow the second nervous system kicks in and you have a fresh fish to fight while the deep water system takes a rest. Aparently one hell of a tough fish to tire out.

Unless I'm confusing with another fish of course.

I've also heard of a guy who didn't reel his dacron up properly and wasn't strapped into the fighting chair when a school of bluefin came tearing past the boat from astern.

The guy's lure (or bait) was taken by one and the guy was plucked from the chair backwards, bounced on the deck once before he went over the railing.

The guy survided. On impact with the water the harness broke, it wasn't in a good condition and gave out. If it wasn't for that the guy probably would have drowned at one hell of a speed.

I have asked Tuna Research if they can shed any light on the matter.  Hopefully they can help.

There is an account (agian I think in Strike) of (i think) one of the Jaffa's hooking a 500 pound fish on a handline.

There is another account (Strike) of a "native" off Durban,  Jerimia,  landing SA's first confirmed marlin, a 12 ft fish after 30 minutes of airial displays on a handline!  The fish was caught by after attacking a fish being brought in and the handline looped over the fishes bill!

In April 2010 on Sealine there is a report of a Atlantic Bluefin caught off Cape Point (SA). Thats incredible. I havent heard of one being caught for 40 years off SA. I wonder how often one is caught and misidentified or the big ones smash anglers up without being seen?

http://www.sealine.co.za/view_topic.php?id=38886&forum_id=45&msg=3

Fin-S the fish was identified as an Atlantic Bluefin

The latest issue  (March/April 2011) of SKI-BOAT mag (which continues to have too many pics of dead endangered fish) has more on the SA Atlantic Bluefin Tuna.  The article by Johan Smal uses a lot of info supplied by the Charles Horne's writing.

It seems the first reports date back to 1921 but the first fish caught from shore on rod and line in 1939 (Durban south pier) and 1945 at Rooikrantz. Catches became more numerous between the the first 1921 sighting and in the 1950's arrived in numbers but in 1962/3 hundreds arrived in False Bay. Between 1963-65 the record was broken 10 times from 192kg - 328kg.  Fish Hoek Bay was "crawling" with bluefin and divers reported that they lying on the bottom like sardines in a tin. Very big fish were lost, like The Sergeant that was hooked several times.
 
In 1972 the fish started disappearing  though the standing SA record of 384kg was set in 1974.

The article suggests the Blue Fin ended up in our shores by mistake during a migration gone wrong but the rich food supply allowed them to stay though we fished them to extinction before they could establish themselves.  They take up to 8 years to reach maturity and live till 30.

andrewb wrote:

The latest issue  (March/April 2011) of SKI-BOAT mag (which continues to have too many pics of dead endangered fish) has more on the SA Atlantic Bluefin Tuna.  The article by Johan Smal uses a lot of info supplied by the Charles Horne's writing.

It seems the first reports date back to 1921 but the first fish caught from shore on rod and line in 1939 (Durban south pier) and 1945 at Rooikrantz. Catches became more numerous between the the first 1921 sighting and in the 1950's arrived in numbers but in 1962/3 hundreds arrived in False Bay. Between 1963-65 the record was broken 10 times from 192kg - 328kg.  Fish Hoek Bay was "crawling" with bluefin and divers reported that they lying on the bottom like sardines in a tin. Very big fish were lost, like The Sergeant that was hooked several times.
 
In 1972 the fish started disappearing  though the standing SA record of 384kg was set in 1974.

The article suggests the Blue Fin ended up in our shores by mistake during a migration gone wrong but the rich food supply allowed them to stay though we fished them to extinction before they could establish themselves.  They take up to 8 years to reach maturity and live till 30.

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Any update if bluefin has been spotted/caught in our waters during the past 2 years?

QAZA wrote:

andrewb wrote:

The latest issue  (March/April 2011) of SKI-BOAT mag (which continues to have too many pics of dead endangered fish) has more on the SA Atlantic Bluefin Tuna.  The article by Johan Smal uses a lot of info supplied by the Charles Horne's writing.

It seems the first reports date back to 1921 but the first fish caught from shore on rod and line in 1939 (Durban south pier) and 1945 at Rooikrantz. Catches became more numerous between the the first 1921 sighting and in the 1950's arrived in numbers but in 1962/3 hundreds arrived in False Bay. Between 1963-65 the record was broken 10 times from 192kg - 328kg.  Fish Hoek Bay was "crawling" with bluefin and divers reported that they lying on the bottom like sardines in a tin. Very big fish were lost, like The Sergeant that was hooked several times.
 
In 1972 the fish started disappearing  though the standing SA record of 384kg was set in 1974.

The article suggests the Blue Fin ended up in our shores by mistake during a migration gone wrong but the rich food supply allowed them to stay though we fished them to extinction before they could establish themselves.  They take up to 8 years to reach maturity and live till 30.

Click to expand...

Any update if bluefin has been spotted/caught in our waters during the past 2 years?

Click to expand...

Hi QAZA

South Africa does not have a big country quota for southern bluefin. The CCSBT only allows us 40 tons.

Most of the fish are caught in the Mozambican channel.

Last year the boats longlining there got around 20 tons.

The fish that used to come into Fish Hoek might have been Atlantic bluefin.

I know it may all be a bit academic but on the first occasion I fished Ascension Island (South Atlantic) back in 1999 apart from the Blue Marlin and masses of YFT we - two boats but possibly the same shoal - had abortive strikes from what one of the crewmen, an Azores, was convinced were Bluefin Tuna in the 700lb range. Huge gouts of water and the double bands on the stinger lines popping but no hook-ups.

At the time I mentioned it to one of our Club members, who had access to lots of commercial records, but he was adamant that they weren’t Bluefin - none showed up in those records - but massive Atlantic BigEye. Japanese records suggested that they’d had Big-Eye to over 600lbs somewhat further North in the Gulf of Guinea. However the Azores crewman when returning home spoke to several commercial skippers who confirmed that they had occasionally encountered Bluefin in that area of the tropical Atlantic around Ascension.

Looking at this ICAAT research paper - http://www.iccat.int/documents/meetings/docs/bft_symp/pdf/bft_symp_031.pdf - which analysed Japanese longline captures it does suggest that there was, certainly in the ‘60s/early ‘70s a distinct population off Brazil. And the scatter diagram in that report does show small numbers being recorded from the Eastern Atlantic all the way down to the Cape.

I wonder if it was stragglers from that now commercially extinct ‘Brazilian’ population that found their way to False Bay all those decades ago?

Interesting topic, I have had a few big hook ups in the deep off Durban that have spooled my 80lb rigs of 750m of line with no chance of even turning the fish, don't know what fish it is but has happened 3 or 4 time over the years, one fish spooled us in more or less 12 seconds on 50lb.

Cpt. Hook wrote:

Interesting topic, I have had a few big hook ups in the deep off Durban that have spooled my 80lb rigs of 750m of line with no chance of even turning the fish, don't know what fish it is but has happened 3 or 4 time over the years, one fish spooled us in more or less 12 seconds on 50lb.

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I need to go fishing with you!!!

Cpt. Hook wrote:

Interesting topic, I have had a few big hook ups in the deep off Durban that have spooled my 80lb rigs of 750m of line with no chance of even turning the fish, don't know what fish it is but has happened 3 or 4 time over the years, one fish spooled us in more or less 12 seconds on 50lb.

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Hi Cpt Hook

Quite likely a bluefin. Keep in mind that these are southern bluefin and not the Atlantic ones.

The longliners based in Richards Bay caught half our country quota.