Yellowfin Tuna Capture

Fishing for Research off of Los Frailes

Dr. Terry Bradley of University of Rhode Island taking part in the capture effort.

Transporting yellowfin tuna- Specimens are placed in clear plastic bags and placed into a drum filled with water in order to be transported to the Achotines Laboratory

 “Los Frailes” are two small islands sit seven nautical miles of the Azuero peninsula in southwest panama, just beyond sight from the Achotines Laboratory.  Craggy, rocky masses made up of sharp cliffs, there is no vegetation on either island.  Throngs of perching birds rest upon the coastline, appearing to take turns from working the baitballs that are continually preyed upon by schools of hungry pelagic.  The astounding amount of life surrounding the island may a reason why this region has been dubbed the “Tuna Coast,” and undoubtedly a factor in selecting the current site of the Achotines Laboratory.

            Today I was lucky enough to have a chance to collect new broodstock for the Achotines facility. I was lucky enough to share the trip with Dr. Terry Bradley, a distinguished faculty member at the University of Rhode Island Aquaculture and Veterinary science program.   Dr. Paul Olin, of California Sea Grant extension and James Baros a student at University of Miami returned on the morning trip, bringing an ideal sized yellowfin for transport, around 6kg, back to the lab. The fish appeared to be doing quite well in the quarantine tank, so our trip was met with much anticipation.
 In, the captain, and Carlos, the deckhand, operate an approximately 22 foot “panga,” that resembles a traditional artisan skiff with the exception that it has been refitted with a large homemade live well for broodstock fish transport.  As we loaded up the boat and made our way out of the protected breakwater of Achotines Bay, sealife was abound.  Not less than five minutes later the ocean erupted when Humpback whale breached off our port side as we coasted towards the islands that loomed in the distance.  We started our troll only about 200 yards from the southern island.  Two heavily used Penn senators made up our armory with two half-plucked “Japanese” feathers as lures. When Carlos handed Dr. Bradley and I each a rod to hold and wait for a strike, I had a feeling that it wouldn’t take long to get a hook-up.

Less than five minutes into the troll, my rod doubled over and line started screaming from the reel.  After a blistering 50 yard first run, we all knew this wasn’t a football sized tuna.  “Un Wahoo!” Carlos exclaimed as we saw the aqua-turquoise fish flash for the first time.  After a 10-minute fight, we had the fish boatside, what turned out to be a 38 LB, 140 cm beauty!   While we would have liked to bring the fish into the laboratory alive, this specimen was a bit too big for our live well, and was kept as supper for the group and Achotines Staff.  A variety of biological data were taken from the fish and entered into Achotines eternal datalog.

We set out the lines once more and Dr. Bradley battled a nice skipjack before we pulled in lines for the day.  While we saw numerous feeding tuna jump clear out of the water, unfortunately, capturing a live yellowfin was not in the cards for us.   But the rest of the trip was met with great conversation—I was able to talk with Dr. Bradley about his extensive experiences as a King Salmon Farmer in New Zealand, Charter and Commercial fishermen in the Northeast US, and a University Professor. Most impressively, Dr. Bradley has designed a transgenic trout, an alternative to the well-publicized Aquabounty salmon.  As we made our way back to shore we observed two sea turtles mating at the ocean surface, something Dr. Bradley nor I had ever seen.
After a great lunch, the group spent the rest of the afternoon restocking yellowfin larvae into larval rearing tanks as part two of our workshop’s trial experiment. Following the test run, the group made an impromptu trip to the local surfing beach, Venao, which was home to this year’s Billabong surf championship.

IATTC-UMIAMI Tuna Workshop Participants