All About Albacore Part I: The Catch
One of the great American seafood sins of our times pertains to albacore tuna, specifically that we view this truly beautiful and delicious fish as essentially canned cat food. But there’s far more to the story with troll line caught Pacific albacore in particular being a world-famous, sashimi worthy quarry. The Japanese are hip to this, paying top dollar and treating our albacore with the culinary respect it deserves as a high-end menu item. Throw onto the conversation that the troll line caught albacore fishery of the Pacific Northwest is rated “Best Choice” for sustainability by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch List, and what’s not to love? But like all seafood, the story of albacore begins with the catch. And like all catches, one must grasp the machinations of Mother Nature to understand what’s going on.
I write this during the summer as the oceans of the West Coast of the United States are roaring to life. To those unfamiliar with the Pacific Ocean’s ways, the seasons trigger changes every bit as dramatic as land’s leaf colors and flower blooms. For the northeastern section of the Pacific, broadly the West Coast to Alaska, one of the major natural phenomenon during the summer is the northward intrusion of warm water from the south. At peak, we’re talking an increase of about two to three degrees Fahrenheit. What’s a couple of degrees? For sea life, everything.
These cold waters known for herring, pollock, cod, and salmon abruptly face an invasion of tropical exotics. Animals more associated with California or Hawaii like mola mola, market squid, and Pacific bonito appear as if by magic off Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. What’s more, the mixing belt of the cold and warm water bodies, called “The Edge” by fishermen, creates its own insanely productive ecosystem. Frankly, it’s an aquatic bacchanalia out there when The Edge sets up properly. Species from both worlds collide, maximizing the benefits of warm- and cold-water access for their specific anatomies and life cycles. Planktons bloom and food chain-supporting herring and squid swarm in their billions. Whales, sharks, and dolphin charge into the fray. Far ranging seabirds and brave open water commercial fishermen follow.
From a seafood perspective, perhaps the king of The Edge is the albacore tuna. Specifically, the fatty, high-end sushi worthy adolescents. Think of these teens as suckling pig or lamb quality when compared to the much larger, typically tropical deepwater dwelling adults who are pork or mutton chops in this analogy. From The Edge to your plate, albacore tuna also known as longfins are a regional culinary gem often overlooked domestically but famous worldwide.
Who am I to tell this saga? I’ve had the distinct privilege to work as a commercial tuna fisherman and also buy whole sashimi-grade tuna locally to prepare at home. I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I’ve ruined jeans with tuna blood offshore and tried to make Fijian style soup with the heads. That should count for something.
Long Shot for Longfins
My commercial longfin fishing ex-captain, Stan, and I huddled before our first day of honest work some 50 to 100 miles off the coast of Oregon. It was August. I remember the coffee aboard being equally strong as it was harsh. If it ever came back up it’d be rough. The cap’n perpetually hand rolled cigarettes. American Spirit brand tobacco.
“Here’s how ya troll for longfins,” he began with sweet-leather smelling cigarette smoke wafting throughout the cabin. Longfins are incredible beasts. Built like living torpedoes, the longfin nickname comes from their elongated pectoral fins that function very much like the F-14 Tomcat’s wings—angling outward or inward for increased mobility or speed.
“You can feel their electricity,” a local musician, who did one season on a tuna boat and vowed never to again, told me on Bainbridge Island earlier in the summer. She was the one who first brought up this deckhand gig to me while picking up her younger brother from the paddle camp where I worked. They are endothermic, warm-blooded, and crisscross oceans as true pelagic eating machines. But they are mid-level on the food chain, a chaotic place to exist in the perpetual bloodbath of the ocean’s ecosystem. Thus they spend their waking lives consuming everything smaller than them—squid, anchovies, sardines—while dodging the fastest and most dangerous predators out there—mako sharks, swordfish, and orcas. Giant squid have even been known to poach tuna off longliners in Australia proving their ability to menace from below.
Stan spent less time on the fascinating marine science facts than showing me the trolling rig. We deployed the two metal outriggers, essentially metal frames that stick out from either side of the boat like a pair of wings. Fishing lines with lures come off these, the high angle ideal for setting lures farther aft of the boat. But I was to spend my working hours in the pit, a torso high trench at the stern of the boat. There was an array of reels, hydraulic gurdies, to my right and left as well as short lines tied to bolts on the stern. My job was to deploy and manage these lines at all times, chucking them out in a very specific order and methodology so as not to cause any tangles. From the pit, I’d watch the movement of the lines, each attached to a green squid jig.
I was a spider with a web.
An idle line has a mellow sort of flowy dance to it. The weights and jig glide through the rise and fall of waves with natural motions. But a line with a fish on it becomes alive in a way, trembling strangely or growing taut in an abnormal direction. I was trained to pounce, either flipping the proper hydraulic switch or grabbing the short lines barehanded for yanking.
The whole process was made infinitely more stressful by Stan’s lurking. The lithe, crusty old man, usually puffing on a cigarette, was on my butt. His entire demeanor from shore soured. At first I understood. I was green as hell and needed to learn quick. But the stress of bringing in a fish was magnified tenfold. You see, longfins have what are called “soft mouths”, meaning their lips tear easily when on a hook. This is actually a great adaptation for the tuna, for a hard yank can set them free with a cool lip scar and hard-earned lesson. It’s a nightmare for a green deckhand with a cranky boss. I’d occasionally lose one in the final tug from the water, which when we were in a rising wave could abruptly be ten feet below me. Learning to time my final haul-in with the waves was important.
Now with the benefit of hindsight, I think 95% of his gruff micromanaging was because we simply weren’t catching fish and that puts captains into a dark headspace. This was the summer of 2015, the year of The Blob that was all over local news. The Blob refers to a massive, coast spanning warm water intrusion to our waters in 2014 that lingered on through 2015 and displaced The Edge. The warm water blob was a curiosity to NPR-listening landlubbers but massive disaster for us fishermen trying to make a living on the ocean. Strange tropical creatures like sunfish, aka mola mola, were washing up on the Oregon coast in unusual numbers. Man-sized, freaky Humbolt squid were reeled in by anglers. The seasonal migrations of fish were all screwed up.
Probably the most affected fishery was the albacore we chased. Longfins spend their entire lives chasing water temperature. When they are at their tastiest as juveniles, they ride The Edge of where warm and cold-water meet. The cold water is more productive, loaded with all their favorite nutrient rich foods. But the warm water is a more energy efficient and pleasant place to exist as endothermic, warm-blooded, critters. So longfins do the smart thing: relax in the warm water, work in the cold. It’s this phenomenon that brings them off the coast of the Pacific Northwest from mid-summer and into the fall. It’s all about that sweet, sweet edge.
So of course, a giant blob of warm water plopped onto where The Edge is supposed to be screws everything up. Stan and I aboard were on the frontlines of this temperature-based screw job. He was zigzagging to all his favorite spots and we’d catch about ten fish a day to show for it. The “spots” on the open ocean all look the same from the surface but are known to fisherman thanks to submerged landmarks. For example, “Inner Dump” and “Outer Dump” referred to two different explosive ordinance disposal sites: one closer to shore, one further. I am not sure David Attenborough would want to narrate that in a nature special.
The Freezer
I spent more time in the freezer hold than fishing. Everything onboard was vintage, including the freezer system, which was essentially supercooled copper pipes that ran along the sides of the fish hold. This freezer system is industry standard for canned tuna. For sashimi-grade fish, more expensive flash freezing capabilities and techniques are needed. Access to this frigid underworld was through a single small deck hatch that even I at my average size needed to squeeze through. Usually I’d be down there long enough to necessitate bundling up, so winter layers came on. I’d chuck my deck brush down there with a clatter and follow.
Our tuna lay down there, the new ones in disarray and the old ones frozen solid and stacked neatly by me some hour previous. I’d grab one, usually in the 10-pound range, and start the morbid Lincoln Logs game. Once all the fishies were stacked, which due to our crappy numbers went relatively quickly, the real work began. The vintage copper pipe freezing system developed a layer of ice on the pipes. The ice would act as an insulator, greatly reducing the freezing system’s effectiveness. Something had to clear the piping. Rather someone. The deckhand. It was my job to scrub every pipe in the hold free of ice crystals. One pass over with the long-handled deck brush wasn’t too bad, but the backside of the pipes also needed scrubbing. This was the hard part. I’d jam a handheld brush and really have to work it. Get on knees. Hop on tiptoes. Roll around like an idiot.
To do it correctly took me the better part of an hour. If it wasn’t perfect and Stan found any ice, he yelled at me. If I took too long, he yelled at me. Sometimes I was doing a good job at a good pace and he yelled at me anyway. Between the yelling he tried to have fun in his way.
“Can you do the Tarzan?” he asked me out of the blue.
“Tarzan?” I asked. He thumped his chest.
“You know, the yell,” Stan prodded.
“Oh, I’m really not sure,” I said. “I haven’t practiced that one.”
“Give it a go,” said Stan.
“Really?”
“Yeah, do it.”
I didn’t feel like I had a choice. The sound I made was a decent bellow but didn’t have that rising and falling aaa-A-aaa-A-aaa-Ahhh! yodel of the real deal.
“Ha!” Stan guffawed. “That’s nothin’, get a load of this.” He took a deep inhale, his shoulders rolling back. I braced myself. He let loose. “AAA-aaaa-AAA—grk!” Stan’s perfect start broke down into truly violent coughing, sending him from proud-warrior stance to doubled over.
“You ok?!” I was at his side. He was really hacking up a lung, finally taming the cough after a solid minute of gasping for air. He spat thick wads of tobacco-stained saliva onto the deck.
“Christ,” he coughed, retreating to the wheelhouse to roll another cigarette.
Action at Last!
We got on the fish a few days in and I finally understood why the hell people do this fishery.
“Action coming up!” We were in the wheelhouse. Early morning. He pointed forward to the twisters of seabirds in the gray sky. Other tuna boats, mostly modern aluminum ones, were working it with lines out.
“They’re pulling ‘em,” I said while donning my old Grundens gear.
“Best get those lines in the water,” he said. I was off to the pit. Lines out. The ocean teamed with life. Whale breath. Shark fins. Dolphins jumping. Ripples of small fish, maybe herring, bait balls right under the surface. The lines were not idle today. Many got hot at the same time, my life now and endless game of Whack-a-Mole. I’d get two hot lines on the gurdies slowly coming in as I dove onto a short line. Stan gave me Atlas work gloves to wear, but I couldn’t keep my grip on the wet line as well while wearing them. I was so terrified of getting chewed out that I didn’t care that the line cut into my bare hands. I could hold better so I would. Both my palms were sliced open and raw, but dammit, I could hold the line.
I’d be halfway in with one short line and another would pop off. The two fish coming in on the gurdies were at the waterline and I had to switch ‘em off, sometimes with a foot. I’d whip the first short line up, then take care of the long lines. Then the other short line. Caught tuna flipped around in the pit alongside me. I was splattered with tuna blood, the brightest naturally occurring shade of scarlet I’ve ever seen. Hyperoxygenated. Iron rich. I tell ya, there is more raw life force in that electric, scarlet tuna blood than any other substance I’ve come across.
I had to get them off the hooks, which was usually a wrestling match. Their whole bodies activated in resistance like a battery powered device. I got nailed by their tail spikes, short dull things that run down their tails, more times than I can recall. Once off the hook, I’d chuck ‘em down a chute into the freezer hold if I had the time. On this particular day, I didn’t. The longfins were on. When they are on, they are on. We didn’t bleed nor brain our tuna, ours destined for the industrial cannery not a sushi bar. So I, spider in the pit, was surrounded by his naturally expiring prey. They are prone to vomit, something Stan taught me to pay attention to.
“What’re they eatin’?” Stan would holler at me. I’d take a good look at whatever tuna puke was nearest.
“Squid!” I’d reply. He’d nod. Our green squid jigs were the right choice.
One thing I appreciated about being on the tuna is that Stan was too busy in the wheelhouse to micromanage me. I could just be in the zone in the pit, which was pretty exciting when busy. Good times lead to good moods. I took to saying “sorry” to each tuna as I dropped him or her down the chute. I wasn’t really sorry per se but wanted to acknowledge the taking of a life. Fish are good beasties, pure in their way. This was going to be real people food; healthy, cheap canned protein for families making sandwiches and casseroles. I felt pretty good about the ethics involved.
We only caught one bycatch fish the entire season. One of the short lines went taut. I, the idle spider, leapt into action.
“This one’s… a fighter…” I grimaced against the line cutting into my raw palms. Naturally Stan, back to his shoulder perching ways now that things were slow, was on me.
“F***, can’t you get that f***er in?” he seemed disgusted that I’d have such a struggle with a probably 10-pound fish.
“I dunno about this one…” I tried to retort through the panting. The fish was finally at the waterline and I bent over the stern. When the wave action brought the fish as close as possible, I’d give it the hero yank aboard. No soft mouthing.
The open jaw of a blue shark, probably six or eight feet long, broke the surface. I fired off some Stan-worthy f-bombs, dropping the line and leaping back into the safety of the pit.
“What the f***?!” Stan blurted.
“It’s a goddamn shark!” I replied. The tired beast stayed on our line, towed at around three knots a few lengths behind us with iconic fin breaking the surface.
“Oh yeah?” Stan hopped into the pit beside me. “I’ll be dammed.” He reached for the line, bringing the shark back toward us.
“What… do we do?” I asked. Stan wrestled the shark back to where I had it.
“I want my f***’n jig back,” Stan growled. The shark broke the surface again but this time met Stan’s fist. My captain held the shark prisoner with fishing line in left hand while he rained blows with his right. The wet sound was a side of beef hitting the floor. Thwak! Thwak! The shark’s defiant body language shifted, submissive and beaten. Stan boldly reached his hand into the toothy maw and removed the green squid jig in one smooth motion.
“Get outta here ya little f***er,” said Stan almost affectionately as he tossed the shark back into the brine. It was off like a dart. The line was back in the water and Stan returned to the cabin to clean himself up before I had a chance to close my jaw.
Skunked Season Chasing Seagulls
We only had a few days of good fishing in a row during the first week out there. I remember the last one fondly because the sun broke and we might as well have been off Southern California. I shed my shirt, almost going commando under my working bibs. There was a gentle but large sea state that rose above me like a window into an aquarium. Dolphins glided through these clear turquoise waves at eye level like a dream. The lazily flapping mola mola and the slicing blades of shark fins were common. I was decently dialed in at this point, no longer having a mini panic attack whenever a line went taught. Learning the rock of the boat. Timing my haul-ins to avoid soft mouth escapes.
“I’m sorry,” I kept whispering with increasing love to each tuna I pulled in. Check on the barf. Plenty of squid in there. No jig changes necessary.
By my greenhorn standards, these were days of breathless action and legendary fishing. By Stan’s, these were entirely adequate days. One was exceptional, I think we caught over 200 in a day—a lot for the ole boat and our two-man operation. But the others topped out at 100 or less, then sputtered down to a dozen or fewer. Cascadian tunamen usually get between $1 to $2 per pound on the market. Maybe a little more. Let’s say a typical fish is 8 pounds, so we’re looking at $8 to $16 per fish on average. For ease of math and a little deckhand optimism, let’s say $10 to $20 per fish. So that 200-fish day was $2,000 to $4,000 for the boat. I had a 10% crew share, so that’s $200 to $400 a day for me. Not too shabby! Let’s say we fish out 30 days of fall at this rate. That’s $6,000 to $12,000 for hunky deckhand Norris for a month’s work. I could do just about anything for a month if there’s a $12,000 payday at the end of it.
Of course you see the problem here. That 200-fish day was our maximum. We probably had three or four days in the 100-fish range. The weeks ticked by with 10- or 20-fish daily hauls. So, let’s say the daily average of 30 days was 20 fish, not 200. That’s $600 to $1,200 for bum deckhand Norris. Total. That’s $600 to be at sea for an entire month. $600 to be chewed out by Stan all day. To agree to be abducted from your life, splattered in tuna blood and scraping copper freezing coils and scrambling around the pit like a cracked-out Ham the chimp in a space capsule. $600 to have zero autonomy of any kind.
$600.
The fishing was so pathetic that Stan ordered me to look out for birds.
“Excuse me?” I asked. Yes, birds. We were over a hundred miles off the coast of Oregon somewhere and having no luck at all. Birds mean fish and right now they were our only hope. I scanned the sky, grateful for calm sunny weather at the very least.
“Bird!” I hollered from the pit, pointing to a stray seagull. This seagull was to us what the dove was to Noah.
“Don’t keep your eyes off him!” Stan ran into the wheelhouse and gunned the engines in hot pursuit of the gull. I pulled in the lines. You can only fish at trolling speed, usually two or three knots. I joined Stan in the wheelhouse.
“C’mon…” Stan muttered under his breath. I made us sandwiches as we pursued the gull for most of a day.
“Oh!” I saw something through the binoculars.
“What is it?” Stan asked excitedly. “More birds? Action?”
A second seagull approached our bird. The two passed right by one another, the new gull headed in the exact opposite direction of the first.
“I don’t think these birds have a f***’n clue, Stan,” I said. Stan slowed the engines. I plopped the lines back in the water. We didn’t catch a fish all day. I still hopped into the freezer hold every few hours to brush the frost off the coils. We were in the middle of The Blob purgatory, The Edge completely hidden and out of our reach. Probably way up by Alaska. We chased the rare, probably starving seagull. The season was a skunker.
We kept at it for about three weeks before Stan called it quits as October descended. We just couldn’t find The Edge and at a certain point you’re just burning fuel. The crappy season would be fully realized and reported with time. A 2016 report from the National Marine Fisheries Service Fisheries of the United States 2015 would claim that Washington’s 2015 catch was 363 million pounds valued at $274.2 million, a decline of 35% by volume and 23.5% by value from 2014 (also a bad The Blob year). We offloaded the tuna and I got a payday of about $1,000 after I helped deliver the boat to Seattle’s Fishermen’s Terminal for the off-season.
I’ll never take a can of tuna for granted again—and neither should you.
Tune in for the next installment of this All About Albacore seafood adventure series as we follow the albacore from Pacific Northwest waters to local markets.
All About Albacore Part III: The Feast
All About Albacore Part II: The Market – Gourmet fare or cheap lunch?
