Mid-1960s
Photographer: Robert Brigham

In the 1960s Woods Hole fishermen caught tuna on long lines. In this picture, Billy Klimm is unloading relatively small bluefin tuna from the Cap’n Bill III.

When this picture was taken, Woods Hole fishermen had no market for larger tuna. When sushi became popular in the 1970s and 1980s, fishermen had a market for larger tuna, which they could sometimes sell for several thousand dollars per fish to dealers in Falmouth harbor who would ship the fish to Japan.

In the 1990s fishermen elsewhere in New England sometimes got more than $50,000 for a single large tuna. In 2005 a single giant bluefin sold for more than $170,000 at a Tokyo market.