The tuna tower is twenty-eight feet high and is accessible by wire ladders called ratlines. Also on board is Kevin Wilson, the Weiners’ mate, who is up in the tuna tower driving the boat, and Chris, Steve’s twelve-year-old son, who is in his berth reading a comic book. He has a way of leading with his nose when he’s talking to you. Brooks broke his nose eight times playing hockey in college (“A good shot each time,” he says) and has a thin white scar on his nose from reconstructive surgery. When you talk to Steve, even when he’s off the water, he always seems to be scanning the horizon, searching for a fin or a little wake or some other sign of a fish. Steve, forty-one, is three years older than Brooks, and is very much the older brother. In a good season they will get around forty giants. The Weiners are harpoon fishermen, which is to say they are more like hunters than fishermen: they stalk giant tuna in the open ocean. giant tuna destroy nets, snap rods, and will fight on the end of a line until their muscles burn up and their hearts explode. But there are not many fishermen like the Weiners, who have the gear and the expertise to catch giant tuna. A good-quality giant is a new car, a year’s worth of boat payments, a winter vacation in the Caribbean. Pulling a giant tuna from these waters is like going into a bank and helping yourself to cash. The quantity of food, together with the cold water, makes the tuna fatter than hogs. The fish migrate here each summer from the Gulf of Mexico to feed on schools of herring, mackerel, butterfish, and pogies living around the Georges Bank. The most valuable giant tuna are caught off the coast of New England and Canada, from June through early November. “It is eaten in private dinners by our politicians and business executives.” “The very best toro you cannot buy at all,” Mr. “It is necessary to have a food with a higher status than any other, and that is the toro of the giant bluefin.” Only a tiny percentage of the Japanese population can afford good toro, which costs about $75 for two bite-size pieces and is available only in the best sushi bars. “In Japan we are concerned with status in all things, including food,” says Sadanori Gunji, the author of The Flying Bluefin Tuna, a book about the phenomenon of giant tuna in Japan. A good piece of toro has a rind of glistening fish fat surrounding remarkably red and lustrous flesh, which is itself shot through with delicate, sugary strings of fat. In Japan there is a vocabulary to describe the belly of a giant tuna that is as rich as our vocabulary about wine. The fattest part of a giant tuna is the meat running in a diagonal stripe across its belly, which the Japanese call toro. The fat is what the Japanese pay so much money for. Some giants, however, sell for a mere $3,000 much depends on the quality of the fish–the fatter the better. A few years ago, one giant sold for $83,500. At the daily tuna auction in Tokyo it is not unusual to see a single giant bluefin tuna sell for $30,000. The most valuable wild animal in the world is not the white rhino, which is killed for its horn, nor the leopard, which is killed for its hide, nor the brown bear, which is killed for its gallbladder. Then he looks through the wheelhouse glass and says, “Sure would be nice to get onto the mother lode with no one else around.” Brooks Weiner, wearing glasses like his brother’s, swings into the cabin and punches a few coordinates into loran. Boothbay Harbor, Maine, is a white smudge at our stem. Ahead of the Elizabeth Ames, due east, is the open ocean. The glasses, which have polarized lenses and stylish leather blinders to keep out the light, are necessary for looking through the shield of glare on the surface of the ocean and seeing the tuna underneath. sun, sprays and polishes and inspects them again. Steve Weiner sprays his sunglasses with Windex, polishes them, holds them toward the 6:30 A.M. Stalking the disappearing bluefin tuna From Harper’s magazine
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