Tuna Fishing - The Tuna Wranglers
I have to admit that I love the Discovery Channel on TV. With all of the king crab fishing to the lobster wars, these shows are awesome to watch. If I were about 10 years younger, not married and did not have a beautiful 5 month baby boy, I would be on one of those crab boats. That would be a great adventure. But this is the real world and I just have to watch it on the tube.
The new show I have been watching these days is the Tuna Wranglers from Australia. These guys are having some fun in my book. A lot of money at stake, but what a great way to be with mother nature and on the sea.
Now they use a few different type of methods in finding and catching these fish. Everything from spotting the large schools of Tuna by plane or by boat. They also use the oldest trick in the book, chumming. Once the fisherman have these big fish near the boat, they need to take a sample, the old school way. Some of you may not know how the fisherman of the day used to catch tuna. The fisherman would use a huge pole with about 15 ft of line and a hook. Once they get a bite, on tuna, Â they would pull over their heads and bring them in the boat. Raw body strength pulling in these fish, which could weigh in excess of 100lbs. But now they use big nets to bring them in with. Based on what I have seen on the show, one boat keeps the fish in a tight area by feeding them. (this is very cool see all of that sushi swimming around) Then a net boat makes a huge circle around the chumming boat and traps the Tuna fish. Seeing that huge net being drug around this boat and then closing the bottom of the net so the Tuna can not swim away is a skill. The biggest worry for these guys is the fish swimming deep where the net can not get them. Once in the net, another boat has been dragging a huge keeper pen from land and meets with these other boats. Then the scuba divers set up the trap net with the keeper pens, to transfer the catch to be taken back to market. These huge keeper pens can hold thousands of pounds of fish. Also once the fish are near port, the fisherman can feed them regularly to fatten the fish to bring more money. This keeps the fisherman from over fishing the Tuna and only taking the ones needed to market. I think this is a very good way to make a living as a netting method, but also keeps the Tuna fish from being over fished. Cool show!
