South Australia is famous for our highly sought after Blue Fin Tuna. South Australian fishermen were among the first to introduce the fishing friendly practice of tuna fishing. In the early 1980’s government organizations deemed that over fishing was causing a problem to the Southern Blue Fin Tuna. At that time a quota was introduced and the quota was based on the weight of the fish. Brilliantly the fisherman thought of the idea of catching the tuna out sea and slowly dragging the live tuna back to port Lincoln as not to damage this fish. From there they feed the tuna and get a greater size and in turn are able to get larger volumes of fish without endangering the species. South Australia Blue Fin Tuna is so highly value because each fish is hand picked out of the “cages” this stop any bruising on the fish from the traditional way of dragging the fish back from the sea. From here we can export direct from the sea to our markets overseas.
Fishing and towing
Tuna fishing involves the vessels going out to the continental shelf in the great Australian Bight as capturing the southern Blue Fin Tuna. The capture is possible using a purse seine net which closes at the bottom of the net and enables the fish to swim around whilst trapped inside. This procedure is idea as it does not harm any of the fish. From there the fish are transferred into the “tow” net. The vessel then tows back the tuna into holding farms in Port Lincoln as a maximum speed of 1 knot.
