Time to get out my swordfish lures ...

[teacher]

From today's Irish Times ...

Angling experts were astounded yesterday by a fisherman who caught a swordfish off the coast of north-east England - thousands of miles from its normal habitat. Peter Dent spotted the 180 cm (6 ft) fish caught in his salmon net as he fished off the coast of Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Northumberland.

The 27 kg beast amazed fishing commentator Sam Harris (73), who said it was the first time he had heard of a swordfish being caught in chilly British waters.

[col]

:shock: 8)

[Rockhopper]

Thats my home ground...its probably a Garfish thats had a few bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale :lol: that stuff works better then steroids :lol: :lol:

Good job one of the north east match anglers didnt catch it during a comp, can you imagine trying to weigh that thing in and be beleived where you caught it, it would cause murders :lol: :lol: :lol:

Funny things happening in our oceans though, wonder whats next in the news? :roll:

Tom.

[2Poc]

Pic of it:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1946958.html

[Eoghan]

Cant wait for the day that a tuna hits my popper...!!! :lol:

[Bradan]

There used to be a thriving bluefin tuna fishery off that coast, about 70 years ago I think, and the tuna should be arriving off the northwest coast here shortly, so maybe the odd swordfish moving north might be expected, what with global warming etc.........

[Rockhopper]

Bradan,

Your right about the Tuna, it was less than 70 years though, they were getting them on rod and line in the late 50's AFAIK

I think it was more of a current change that made them stop, never heard anything about over fishing.

I know of an English guy who caught the first rod and line Marlin off the coast of Portugal about 15 years ago, everyone said they werent there, he had enough money to spend enough time to prove them wrong. I think there must be lots of species that are not supossed to be there that are (at times) there.....unlike on dry land sightings are far harder.

Tom.

[Bradan]

From the BBC website - apparently they had a segment about it in a programme called Inside Out:

[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/yorkslincs/series9/week_three.shtml[/url]

Tuna tales
Scarborough
Tuna capital and home of the big catch - Scarborough

Inside Out looks at whether big game fishing is making a return in Scarborough.

Back in the 1930s Scarborough was best known as a SPA town and resort, Yorkshire's answer to St.Tropez.

But under the water - something big was stirring.

A mysterious fish had been spotted by local fisherman fish about 10 miles out to sea.

They had never seen anything like it before - a huge fish, bigger than any shark, ramming into the Herring shoals and stealing them from their nets.

It weighed more than a Mini, and accelerated faster than a Ferrari.

The Giant Atlantic Bluefin Tuna had turned up off the east coast for a North Sea feeding frenzy.

Back then they called it a Tunny.

The Tunny Club

Scarborough became home to the Tunny Club of Great Britain.

Millionaires hatched plots to catch the giant fish on a rod and line, and they employed local fishermen to do the grafting.

Inside Out meets Bill Pashby was just 10-years-old when he went to sea.

He recalls that the fish caught were colossal in size and the race was always on to hook a record breaker.

One man who made it his mission to catch a big Tunny was Lorenzo Mitchell Henry, a pioneering aristocrat and a professional big game hunter.

Mitchell-Henry designed a special rod and reel for the job.

To see if it snapped, he hooked it up to the front his Bentley while his butler reversed the car - it worked so well that he set sail.

And Inside Out has unearthed the only film ever made of East Coast Tunny fishing.

In the film the intrepid angler hooks a giant fish and struggles to control it such is its power.

Three hours later the fight was over and the defeated fish was brought ashore, weighing in at 851lbs - that's about 4,000 cans worth.

What a whopper!

It was the biggest fish ever caught in British waters and Mr Mitchell-Henry was delighted.

News of the catch led to boom times - as long as you weren't a Tunny.

The rich and the famous descended on Scarborough for a piece of the action.

But Tunny fishing wasn't only a Boy's Own adventure.

In the Summer of 1947 Dr Bidi Evans, a woman, came to the Yorkshire Coast in her father's yacht for the Tunny season.

She caught a Tunny weighing in at 714lbs - this fish and Bidi still hold the British Womens' Record.

Tuna wars

Back in Scarborough all was not well in the Gentleman's Club - the world of Yorkshire big game fishing was about to turn nasty.

Another giant fish was caught by a Lincolnshire gentleman farmer called John Hedley Lewis in 1949.

It weighed in at 852lbs, one pound more than Mr Mitchell-Henry's fish.

Mitchell-Henry was furious that his record had been broken - and by a local farmer - so he complained about the rope.

He said that it was too big, too wet - and it weighed too much!

But Lorenzo Mitchell Henry wasn't going to give up without a fight - and Inside Out has tracked down a witness.

Back at the Hedley-Lewis Lincolnshire family estate Vincent inherited his father's unshakeable belief that his father caught the biggest fish ever.

He didn't take kindly to an aristocratic angler arguing over the weight of a piece of wet rope so the debate rages on.

Decline of the Tuna trade

By the mid 50's the North Sea Herring fleet had hoovered the sea - and with no herring to eat, the Tunny moved on.

Scarborough's Tunny Club proudly posed for its last group photo.

But this North Sea drama isn't played out yet - 40 years after the last giant Tunny was caught off the Yorkshire Coast the giant fish is back in British waters.

Inside Out goes in search of the Tuna and its feeding grounds in the North Sea with Adrian Molloy, a professional tuna angler.

Most of the fish Adrian catches are tagged and released - and a satellite tracks them as they tour the oceans for food.

Inside Out and Adrian reckon that these monsters are heading back to Yorkshire waters.

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[coaster]

[quote="Rockhopper"]Bradan,
I think it was more of a current change that made them stop, never heard anything about over fishing.


I'm sure I read somewhere that they stopped arriving there due to over fishing of herring stocks which is what brought them there in the first place

[Rockhopper]

Bradan,

Great write up.

Coaster,

That may be true, I have books with photos of the guys mentioned above taken in the 50's. Whitby is just down the coast from where I was brought up back in England, I remember some of the old skippers talking about how things were back then with the Tunny fishery.

Tom.