For the first time in six decades, a magnificent bluefin tuna has been caught off our North Sea coast. TOM PARKER BOWLES salutes the return of the behemoths

It was the big game experience to beat them all, a hunt so heady, thrilling and downright extraordinary that the cream of Hollywood – along with some of the richest and grandest families on Earth – dropped everything to fly in and take their chance.

But their quarry was neither tiger nor elephant and their location was many miles from the vast African plains or jungles of Madhya Pradesh.

Their destination was just off the coast of Scarborough in Yorkshire and their target the Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna.

For this warm-blooded beast, the largest of the tuna family, is one of the ocean’s most magnificent predators; sleek, muscular and unbelievably strong with the biggest specimens growing up to ten feet long and weighing more than 800lbs.

Fast as quicksilver and iridescently gleaming, they migrated to the North Sea in search of vast shoals of herring. And it was here in the 1930s, under the aegis of the Scarborough Tunny Club, where the likes of John Wayne, Errol Flynn and David Niven, alongside Lord Astor and famed hunter Lady Vera Delves Broughton, set off in small fishing boats to try their luck.

Once hooked, the battle to reel in tuna could rage for hours, with challengers in fervent pursuit of scale-shattering glory.

The bluefin tuna is the largest of the tuna family and one of the ocean’s most magnificent predators

Inventor and globetrotting gadabout Lorenzo Mitchell-Henry bagged an 851lbs monster in 1932. His record still stands. But as the 1930s faded and those gilded young bucks marched off to fight in the Second World War, the small boats were left to rot in their dry docks, the rods and reels left untouched.

Then new advances in commercial fishing saw herring stocks dangerously depleted, while the demand for bluefin tuna – once seen as fit only for cats and fertiliser – rocketed, to feed an ever more rampant demand across the globe.

It turned out this fish tasted every bit as fine as it looked, especially when cut into quivering slices of the most exquisite sushi and sashimi, with prime specimens going for a fortune at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market.

By the start of the 1990s, bluefin tuna had disappeared from British waters. And by 2007, global tuna stocks were close to collapse. This once abundant beast had been fished to the edge of extinction.

Enter the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) which launched a 15-year recovery plan for the species in 2007, alongside strict international fishing regulations.

Its strategy, alongside ever warming waters (meaning more sardines and herrings for the tuna to feed on) have seen Eastern Atlantic numbers surge once again in Britain’s seas.

A 740lbs bluefin tuna was caught off the coast of in Whitby, for the first time in six decades

It has been so successful that by 2021, the species was not only removed from the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, but there were more and more sightings along the South-west coast of England.

And just last month, a 740lbs bluefin tuna was caught off the coast of Whitby, for the first time in six decades. This beautiful fish has at last returned to the North Sea and, with proper management, will hopefully be around for many decades to come.

‘Seeing a shoal in action really is the most unbelievable sight,’ says Mitch Tonks, chef, restaurateur and all-round fish guru. He lives in Dartmouth, Devon, and is owner of The Seahorse restaurant. ‘The water seethes and boils as the tuna drive their prey up to the surface. It just blows your mind,’ he says.

He tells me that they started arriving back in the English Channel in big numbers about four years ago. They were spotted, tagged, released and carefully monitored. He’s been out fishing for them a number of times, recently landing a 185lbs beauty before releasing it.

‘We operate on a strictly catch and release basis as we don’t have a commercial licence,’ he says. ‘But it took me 30 minutes to fight and reel it in. You see the most incredible range of colours as the sun glints off their skin, green and yellows and blues...’

He pauses, lost in reverie. ‘They really are the king of fish.’

And with the reappearance of these colossal creatures, a fledgling tuna fishing industry has sprung up.

In 2023, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) issued ten commercial vessels with fishing licences on a trial basis. This year, 30 commercial boats have been allowed a catch a total of four tons each, still a relatively tiny amount. ‘Tuna fishing is incredibly complex,’ explains Tonks, ‘and I don’t think many of the fish are being handled properly. They need to be killed in the right way, preferably by ikejime.’

This is the Japanese method where the fish is despatched with a spike through its brain, so death is instant and painless. It also prevents stress chemicals such as adrenaline, cortisol and lactic acid building up, which can turn the flesh sour and mushy and give it a nasty fishy pong, as well as spoiling quickly.

Tonks adds: ‘Then they need to be bled and chilled quickly on board to stop the internal body heat ruining the meat and to prevent dangerous toxins from forming. A lot of these boats don’t even have ice-making facilities on board.’

He shakes his head. ‘It’s a true art and it will take time to understand these beautiful fish. There are very few doing it well.’

One of those trying to do it right is Edgar Moxom, owner and skipper of Ocean Echoes, based in Weymouth, Dorset. He’s modest and softly spoken, and has been fishing sea bass commercially for 28 years. He received his bluefin tuna commercial licence for the first time this year. The tuna must be caught by rod-and-line and there’s a lot of investment involved.

‘All those specialised rods and reels are very serious bits of kit and costly too,’ he says. ‘You also have to buy all the equipment for chilling them down, plus you have to learn a whole new set of skills.’

He is full of praise for Defra and the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) who have noted the rise in tuna numbers and managed to get increased quotas off ICCAT. Spain and France still get a far higher quota than us. ‘But at least we’ve gone from 15 to 30 permits, which is real progress,’ says Moxom.

Licences are applied for by fishermen and awarded annually, for one year only, and each application goes through a strict process, meaning experience of commercial fishing is essential. But once you pass the criteria, you are entered into a pool and winners are drawn from a hat.

‘This is the problem,’ explains Moxom. ‘I spend a lot of money getting all the kit and there’s every chance I won’t get the permit again next year.’

Price is also an issue. ‘We’re getting less for tuna at the moment at market price than we get for bass. It’s £12 a kilo, compared to £18 at the start of the season.’

Part of the issue lies in a lack of infrastructure and knowledge. ‘There doesn’t seem to be an export market at the moment,’ Moxom goes on, ‘because there is not much confidence in our catch. Tuna grading is a complex, highly technical art and fat content in the fish changes throughout the season.’

Moxom argues that while Defra and the MMO do an ‘excellent’ job in being scrupulous in their regulation and recording of tuna numbers, they need to create a system that sorts the prime fish from the merely mediocre and market them accordingly.

‘In an ideal world, you’d get your licence for five years,’ he says, ‘and build confidence and knowledge, to invest in the long term. But at the moment, this is all so new.’

Because with strict regulations, as well as a change to that annual licence lottery, these incredible creatures, which have come back from the brink of extinction, can not only bring in much needed income for our fishermen.

They can also make sustainably caught English bluefin tuna a byword for some of the very finest fish on Earth.