The Terrence Edward, captained by Dilan LeBlanc, Lower East Pubnico, were the winners of the Milton J. LeBlanc Memorial Tuna Cup for landing the heaviest bluefin tuna (705 pounds) during the 21st annual Wedgeport Tuna Tournament and Festival, which ran from Aug. 16 to 23.
LeBlanc caught the 705-pound bluefin on the 30-mile ground just off Cape Island, he said.
“There wasn’t a whole lot of tuna there when we got there at midnight. We only seen a few fish. They were quite fussy to get a hook into and we had to really play with them and get them feeding really well to hook one. We managed to hook ours at 11 a.m. Wednesday and we retrieved at 1:30 p.m. and got in seven that night. You couldn’t have asked for any better weather,” said LeBlanc.
A total of 19 boats participated in the tournament, landing a total of 12 bluefin tuna (6,688 pounds), three bigeye tuna (332 pounds) and six albacore (242 pounds).
The Robyn Jade, captained by Stephen d’Entremont, landed the heaviest overall weight for the tournament, catching a 630-pound bluefin and 119-pound big eye for a total of 749 pounds.
With Hurricane Erin passing by, fishing effort was impacted in this year’s tournament.
“Most boats were only able to fish two days, so that’s really the reason some weren’t able to get a bluefin,” said Brandon Doucette, president of the Wedgeport Tuna Tournament Association.
There were no bluefin landed from the Hell Hole in this year’s tournament.
“They were only able to fish in the Hell Hole one day, so instead of a prize for heaviest bluefin from the Hell Hole, this year we’re giving highest bluefin price per pound. We did it at the last-minute last year. This year we made it one of the main prizes. We are not able to announce that winner until October, maybe late September. The tuna gets shipped all over the world, so it takes some time before we know all the final prices,” said Doucette.
“Every year for the past 20 years we’ve been ready for a hurricane, knowing it was a possibility. This year worked out much, much better than we thought at the start of the week. We were kind of concerned. There was a chance it was going to shut everything down but it didn’t. The hurricane stayed offshore. The on-land activities were ok. Even on the water, 12 bluefin other than the immediate past few years, 12 bluefin is a very successful tournament for us,” said Doucette.
At last year’s tournament, a record 40 tunas, including 19 bluefin, nine bigeye and 12 albacore tuna, weighing a combined total of 11,405 pounds were landed by the 19 boats.
Rebekah Oomen, associate professor of marine biology at UNB Saint John Transatlantic Fish Lab, was back on the Lower Wedgeport Breakwater wharf for a second year at this year’s tournament collecting samples for her work.
“It was a fantastic experience last year. We just loved to interact with the tunas, the fishers, the whole community. At the same time, we get to take some samples for scientific analysis so we can learn more about the tuna. Our specialty is looking at the DNA of the tuna. We can tell where they are from — the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Mexico or maybe a mixture of the two. It seems like those two populations are hybridizing,” said Oomen.
Her research analysis also looks at what stock is being fished and when in the Atlantic waters. “What stock are we fishing on?”
Oomen said the samples collected are archived at the St. Andrews Biological station where there are high quality archives going back to 2013.
“The idea is in 10 to 15 years we can go back to these samples and do things that we can’t even dream of right now because technology will have developed and given us new opportunities, so we can go back and learn more historically about the tuna and that can help tell us what’s going to happen in the future,” she said.
