Before tuna fishing was ‘wicked’

Before tuna fishing became “wicked,” local fishermen had been capturing and hauling giant bluefin tuna off the coast for years. The dangerous task has gone on to gain notoriety with the popular show “Wicked Tuna,” but the history of catching giant bluefins has deep roots in Newburyport going back generations. Newburyport residents Lee and Bob Yeomans are both experienced at fishing for tuna and hand-lining. “My husband, Bob, and I have a goal to preserve the history of this very dangerous, challenging way of capturing giant bluefin tuna,” Lee Yeomans said. She is leading a project to capture the stories of fishermen. Eighty-eight-year-old Newbury resident Carl Beal Jr. wrote of his experience fishing for giant bluefins with his father off Newburyport in summer 1948 in “Tuna Fishing Peril,” one of many stories about the history of local tuna fishing. >click to read< 11:02

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