COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 31 



THE TUNA 



This famous game fish of the mackerel family is known along the 

 Atlantic seaboard as the horse-mackerel, on the Pacific Coast, as the 

 leaping tmia, and to scientists as Thunnus thynnus, tunny, or tuna 

 fish. 



In New England waters, particularly at Block Island, this fish 

 has in the past two or three years attained considerable prominence 

 not only as a food fish for the markets, but as a game fish for the ardent 

 sportsman who enjoj^s the taking of large fish with the lightest 

 possible tackle. 



For the past five years these fish have been fairly plentiful at Block 

 Island and vicinity. While many specimens have been taken in 

 traps and by harpoon that have weighed upwards of six hundred 

 pomids each, the average weight is much less. Large numbers have 

 been caught with hook and line during the past two seasons weighing 

 from fifteen to seventy-five pounds each. Nearly all of these fish 

 have been taken by the native Block Island fishermen and have been 

 caught with wood jigs painted with aluminum and attached to stout 

 hand lines. It is the smaller sizes only that are caught with hand 

 lines, it bemg almost impossible to handle the large sizes without 

 breakmg either line or jig or tearmg the mouth of the fish. The 

 method of capturing the large sizes with harpoon is by "chummmg" 

 around the boat with small fish and pieces of fish mitil a large Tuna, 

 attracted b}^ the bait, ventures sufficiently near to be harpooned in 

 the same manner as the swordfish. 



During the past season the price paid in the markets for the Tuna 

 or horse mackerel has been sufficiently remunerative to induce the 

 hand-lme fishermen to devote a large proportion of their time to 

 this industry. At four to five cents per pound, which has bee i the 

 average market price, the smaller sizes would average more than one 

 dollar each and while the fish were runnmg, twenty-five fish per day 

 to a boat has been no unusual catch. 



As a game fish the fame of the Tuna has spread throughout the 

 world. At Catalina Island, on the California Coast, large hotels 



