Since late July, local fishermen across the Bay Area have been hearing reports of a rare fish swimming a short distance from the coast: the Pacific bluefin tuna.
Twenty miles. That’s what Tom McGuirk’s friend told him in a call on Aug. 5.
McGuirk, 50, a Half Moon Bay resident and owner of the Cowboy Fishing Co., went out two days later with his 13-year-old son, Shane, in tow. Just 10 miles past Pillar Point Harbor, they spotted a school of Pacific bluefin. By 20 miles, they entered a two-hour fight to haul in their 200-pound catch.
“It’s very rare,” McGuirk said.
McGuirk has been fishing off the Half Moon Bay and Monterey Bay coast for 10 years and has never caught a bluefin tuna. Last year, he fished for bluefin for 40 hours in Monterey Bay following reports from local fishing networks but returned empty-handed.
McGuirk joins a host of others noting the presence of unusual Pacific bluefin tuna on personal text threads, online chat boards and social media.
The Pacific bluefin tuna, prized for its high-grade meat, perfect for poke, and admired for its athletic ability to travel from California to Japan in less than two months, has historically been overfished. Concerns surfaced in the early 1990s, when international catch reached its lowest ebb. Conservation efforts — since 2014, recreational fishers in the United States are limited to two fish per day — have contributed to a slow but steady growth in the population, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
The latest sightings suggest as much, but scientists caution against making such conclusions.
Owyn Snodgrass, a NOAA fisheries scientist, studies the Pacific bluefin tuna and similar species. He said there is nothing rare about Pacific bluefin showing up along the northern bite, the area along Monterey, Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay.
“It is rare for some people to catch them,” Snodgrass said.
For those who don’t fish much or those who otherwise don’t target bluefin, the latest reports leading to successful catches can make the sightings feel significant, Snodgrass said. But he argues that he’s heard similar reports in past years.
Last May, there were Pacific bluefin tuna in Monterey Bay. Similarly, there was good bluefin fishing from Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay in October the year before, he said.
Additionally, stock assessment data used to chart the Pacific bluefin’s historical migration pattern confirms there is nothing unusual about them showing up as close to the Northern California coast as they have in the last two weeks.
Their size, Snodgrass concedes, might be more unusual. This year, he heard a report of a 300-pound bluefin.
It’ll be some time before Snodgrass can say anything conclusive about the recent Pacific bluefin phenomenon, either about its size or its numbers. The process of collecting and analyzing data can take up to two years.
While the technology exists to track data in real time, underfunding in this area pushes researchers like Snodgrass to rely on anecdotal reports like McGuirk’s to determine whether the world’s stock of Pacific bluefin tuna and the environmental factors influencing it are significantly changed.
In the typically rough and cold waters off the Northern California coast, calm and warm temperatures attract bluefin. And those conditions seem to have been just right since the last week of July, when Snodgrass encountered his first post about a Pacific bluefin tuna sighting.
McGuirk recalls warm weather and zero swells the week leading up to his Aug. 6 catch. But he wants to attribute his successful catch to something bigger than these microclimate shifts — something he’s noticed since January.
“The ocean looks so healthy,” McGuirk said. “The whole ocean was erupting with wildlife. I’ve never seen more whales. There were birds. And you could see the anchovies,” referring to the bluefin’s food of choice.
McGuirk has heard of stories of people traveling as far as San Diego and Mexico to catch bluefin tuna.
“To find them just 10 miles west of your home, it’s just that special,” he said.
Too special to not share.
Upon docking, McGuirk filleted and packed the bluefin tuna. He posted about it on Instagram, drawing more than 30 families to Pillar Point Harbor. At a neighborhood block party this weekend, he offered his share as poke.
August 13, 2020 at 12:53AM
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'Rare' tuna delight local fishermen | Local News Stories - Half Moon Bay Review
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