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I keep publishing films and this one is rather special. Allthough the quality is “average” it is a very rare film as it is from 1952 and in colors. It is also a unique documenation of the first years of fishing bluefin tuna with purse seine in Norway.

The film shows an ordinary Norwegian fishing vessel using a tuna purse seine. Allthough it seems primitive, this was how it was done in the early 1950’s. The fishing vessel gets a large catch and the catch is more than the vessel and the crew can handle. The captain calls for help, and when the film starts we can see that another vessel (named “Ådrott”) has arrived. With one vessel on each side of the purse seine the crew lift the tuna out of the purse seine.

When a bluefin tuna dies it sinks, and the weight of the dead fish in a large catch could make it impossible to lift the purse seine and the fish to the surface. The force of the heavy purse seine could also be a danger to the purse seiner and the crew. That is why we can see that a third vessel and two motor boats starts to tow the purse seiner and the catch while the vessel “Ådrott” still helps to stabilize the weight in the purse seine.

The heavy purse seine, the purse seiner and the vessel “Ådrott” are towed towards land, and when reaching shallow waters the purse seine with all the dead tuna is rested on the bottom. Then we can see how the fishermen are “fishing” for dead tuna in the purse seine. We can see several smaller boats helping out, and this film is recorded by a man in one of the motorboats that assisted the purse seiner.

1952 was the best year for bluefin tuna fishing in Norway. Catches of several hundred fish were not unusual. The tuna seen on the film have an average weight of 120 kilogram. Unfortunately the number of fish in this catch is not known. The catch was loaded on several vessels and landed on different locations. It is still likely to believe that there must have been more than 200 bluefin tuna in the catch.

The film shown below is recordet off the coast of Norway around 1970. Only adult bluefin tuna migrated to Norwegian waters in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The mean weight grew bigger year by year and in 1970 it was common to catch tuna weighing from 270 – 310 kilogram. A film of tuna fishing in 1967 shows slightly smaller fish (250 – 290 kilogram). The stock of bluefin tuna migrating northwards was fished down year by year till the last giant tuna was caught in 1986.

Fishing vessels from Norway are now fishing herring off the coast of the northern part of Norway. In winter there are hardly any daylight, but during January the first sunbeams can be seen in the middle of the day. The pictures in this post shows the purse seiner “Tunfisk” (Yes, the name means “tuna-fish”) with a large catch of herring.

We now got a large and healthy stock of Norwegian spring-spawning herring, and for the fishermen it can be hard to calculate how much fish you are going to trap in the purse seine. The catch shown on the pictures is estimated to 500-600 tonnes.

Such catches is normal nowadays, but the coastal seiners (like those you see in this post) prefere smaller catches that are easier to handle.

Three other seiners came to assist “Tunfisk”. The photographer Tor-Stein Løvås was on board on of the assisting seiners; “Sjohav”.