Bluefin tuna have returned to British and Irish waters, prompting calls for a fishing ban to be lifted A trickle of sightings of bluefin over the past six years has suddenly surged, with regular sightings this year of shoals

Some four weeks after he began his attempt to land a giant Atlantic bluefin tuna late in the summer of 1933, Tom Laughton finally felt his wooden boat lurch forward as a vast “tunny” took the bait and began a long fight for its life.

Mr Laughton, the brother of British film star Charles Laughton, later recalled: “Suddenly there was a terrific pull, the top of the rod shattered… the line ran out at frantic speed. All I could do was keep the point of the rod up.

“It took me nearly four hours to bring that fish to the gaff. I was completely exhausted. My arms were done, my back was aching with the strain of the harness.”

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The hotelier and art collector was from far being alone among the beau monde pursuing what is widely considered one of the world’s finest game fish.

Flocking to the same location as Mr Laughton for a spot of fishing were John Wayne and Errol Flynn, alongside British newspaper magnate Lord Astor and Baron Henri de Rothschild, who set sail on his 1,000-ton yacht, Eros.

But most surprising of all in this gathering of angling celebrities and plutocrats was the location.

Rather than the sultry seas of Florida or the Mediterranean, this hunt for a big beast of the piscatorial world was taking place in the somewhat chillier climes of Scarborough, which for a glorious period was one of the world’s prime destination for the high-end pursuit of Thunnus thynnus. Such was its popularity, that special trains were laid on from London to transport anglers toward their quarry.

Trickle of sightings

A “tunny” caught in the North Sea off Scarborough in 1933 by an Etonian adventurer called Lorenzo Mitchell Henry retains the record for the largest fish caught in British waters with a rod and line. At the age of 67, he landed a tuna weighing 851lb (386kg) – equivalent to 4,000 cans of fish.

The waters off the Yorkshire resort continued to be visited by monied anglers until the species abruptly disappeared in 1954. Sporadic sightings continued in UK coastal waters until the 1990s, after which the bluefin is thought to have disappeared altogether from the British Isles.

But now, Thunnus thynuus, which remains officially classified as an endangered species globally, is back in British and Irish waters in significant numbers – and the lucrative game fishing industry it once sustained may not be far behind.

A trickle of sightings of bluefin over the past six years has suddenly surged, with regular sightings this year of shoals, containing hundreds of fish at a time, from the Scilly Isles to Scotland and from Wales to the Channel Islands.

The government research body in charge of monitoring fish numbers, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture (Cefas), has revealed that so far in 2018 there have been more than 100 witnessed “feeding events” – frenzied encounters where dozens or even hundreds of tuna at a time rise to the surface to feed on their preferred prey of herring or sprats, producing a so-called “boiling sea”. The sightings, most of which have been off Cornwall and Wales, suggest that thousands of bluefin are now passing through, or are even resident in, the coastal waters of the British Isles.

All of which has led to calls that Britain should capitalise on the return of the bluefin – and recapture some of the glamour of the battles off 1930s Scarborough – by once more allowing the tuna

to be fished for recreation in British waters.

Sustainable management

A campaign to do precisely that, based on the premise that all hooked bluefin should be returned to the sea alive, has been launched with the backing of the sport’s representative body, the Angling Trust.

Steven Murphy, director of the campaign Bluefin Tuna UK, said: “There is a tremendous opportunity here to harness the return of tuna for not only significant economic benefits, but also in setting a new benchmark for the sustainable management of a recovering species.”

As matters stand, a return of game fishing for bluefin would be impossible because the species remains officially endangered globally and, despite the recovering numbers in the Atlantic, Britain has no share of the EU’s annual quota of 16,000 tonnes of tuna, which is currently shared out between commercial boats from France, Spain and Italy.

As a result, it is currently illegal for anyone in the UK to set out to fish for bluefin and any of the fish caught and killed as “by-catch” cannot be sold or given away, unless it is for scientific research.

But the campaigners claim there is a solid basis for introducing a “catch and return” model whereby anglers would be allowed hook tuna for the sort of “man versus Leviathan” struggles immortalised by Ernest Hemingway, with a legal obligation that the fish is then returned alive whence it came.

It is claimed that the mortality rate from such fisheries is less than five per cent.

The campaigners also spot an opportunity in Brexit, under which Britain would be able to re-join the international body in charge of tuna quotas – the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) – as a separate state and thereby secure its own share of bluefin without the need for horsetrading with other EU nations.

The argument is that with just 0.05 per cent of the current EU quota (equivalent to about 20 tons of tuna), Britain could have a tuna fishing industry based around Cornwall and Wales which would be worth £25,000-£30,000 per fish once the earnings from additional tourism and charter hires are factored in. This compares to the dockside value of £3,000 per dead tuna caught by commercial boats.

Economic boost

Scott Mann, the Conservative MP for North Cornwall, and a keen angler, said: “It would be a massive boost to our coastal communities if the Government was to take up these proposals.”

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is currently consulting on its sustainable fishing policy and has said it recognises the economic benefits of recreational angling.

And yet for all the excitement the sightings are generating among conservationists and anglers, the bluefin remains something of an enigma. Capable of migrating vast distances, including crossing the Atlantic and back again each year, the bluefin’s exact movements, including how long they stay around the UK, are not known to science. As a result, the reasons behind the resurgence are not yet fully understood, along with the question of the tuna population’s sustainability.

It is for this reason that scientists from Cefas and the University of Exeter have embarked on a two-year, large-scale tagging project which will minutely track the movements of dozens of tuna caught humanely and fitted with a satellite tracking device.

Once they have collected information over 12 months, the tags will detach and upload their data from October next year.

The researchers will consider whether factors such as a rise in the bluefin’s preferred prey such as sprats and sardines are behind its return.

Premature ideas

Dr David Righton, who is heading the project for Cefas, said: “It could be that these fish have attracted tuna back into UK waters, or in a reverse of the decline in tuna after the 1960s, it could be that stocks have recovered a little, and migration patterns are beginning to change again, or that environmental conditions have become more favourable.”

Either way, the scientists argue that the long term future of the British bluefin in not yet assured.

Dr Matthew Witt, of Exeter University, said: “These are huge, exciting, top predators, yet with an uncertain future.”

Environmentalists argue that the introduction of even a limited recreational fishery may be premature. Will McCallum, head of oceans at Greenpeace UK, said: “Any decision to allow fishing for [tuna], or potentially harming it by catching and releasing it, would have to be based on rigorous research regarding the true state of its recovery.”

In the meantime, those seeking a return of the epic battles once seen off Scarborough can muse on the case of Harold Hardy, a tunny angler who spent seven hours in the early 1930s battling a bluefin claimed to have been 16ft long.

As he was about to land the fish, it succeeded in snapping the line and escaped.

Four witnesses described it as “the greatest fight they had ever seen in their lives”.