Sports fisherman stunned by the decline of great fish.
Hatfield resident Matt Rigney started fishing when he was 5. The 45 years-old recalls his great grandfather, an accomplished fisherman, as the legendary man who could always catch a fish.
“He would never not catch a fish,” Rigney said. “He fished out of Long Island Sound in Old Lyme (Connecticut), and would go out and come back with these black fish, flounder or giant 50-pound striped bass, which were rare in those days. Growing up, I would always wonder how come he can catch those fish and I can’t.”
Rigney’s love of the ocean set him on a journey to write a book called “In Pursuit of Giants: One Man’s Global Search for the Last of the Great Fish,” which was nominated for a 2013 Massachusetts Book Award.
Marlin “It was a really stunning realization that in the 50 or 60 years since my great grandfather was fishing, the oceans have changed radically and on a scale that I wasn’t prepared for,” Rigney said. “Scientists now estimate that over 70 to 90 percent of the great fish of the sea like marlin, blue fin tuna and swordfish, the very focus of the book, are gone.”
On his website, the book is described further as “a moving elegy and call to arms for the protection of the great fish of the sea – marlin, bluefin tuna, and swordfish.”
The idea for book began after Rigney read a series of National Geographic articles, in April 2007, that dealt with destruction of cod off the Grand Banks off Newfoundland Island, Canada, and the destruction of blue fin tuna in the Mediterranean.
“I did not want to write a book that was a dry, non-fiction lecture format book about the ocean, about over-fishing, and why this is happening. More than anything, my goal was to bring people out there with me and write an adventure story, taking them with me to these locations around the world,” Rigney said.
Rigney’s investigative journalism approach took five years and 75,000 miles. He visited Nova Scotia, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Malta. He interviewed hundreds of people in the fishing world, took photos and logged over 24 hours-worth of video. The farthest offshore he went was over 200 miles.
“Pursuit of Giants,” published by Viking, is split into three sections.
The first is called “Discovery” and details his time in Mexico and Nova Scotia, his first real forays into the off-shore commercial fishing world and into the environments of the great fish of the sea. The second section, “Destruction,” focuses specifically on Japan, South Australia and the Mediterranean and the development and exploitation of tuna ranching.
“Tuna ranching has had disastrous effects in the Mediterranean and the whole cycle is driven by Japan, which imports 80 percent of the world’s blue fin tuna for sushi,” Rigney said.
Rigney spent eight days with the Green Peace boat, the “Rainbow Warrior,” when it was trying to stop illegal tuna poaching. In Malta, he said Green Peace volunteers were attacked on deck by local fisherman.
“Some (in the industry) don’t care about 10 years down the road, while others are changed as they see the ocean change. They become more convinced that they need to improve their own practices. It was cheering to see that there are many good people out there willing to fight,” Rigney said..
The last section is called “Primal Wild” about his excursions to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and nearby New Zealand, considered prime areas for sport fishing.
Here the book takes readers into the action of being very close to a 1,000-pound marlin. On his journey, Rigney got to witness such events as a blue fin tuna, which can weigh upwards of 1,500 pounds and swim 50 to 60 miles per hour, jumping out of the ocean after its blue fish prey.
“That’s highway speed. Imagine something the size of a cow keeping pace with you on the highway, but going through water, which is 780 times the density of air,” he said. “Our mass and size and strength as humans are a minuscule fraction of that. These things are like the titans of the sea, powerful marvels of evolutionary design and so perfectly suited for their environment.”
The book’s epilogue addresses solutions. He recommends that consumers become educated about the kinds of fish they eat, and that recreational fisherman how to take and release a fish. He also offers something called “Five Minute Missions” on the book’s Facebook page.
“People can click to sign a petition to make a huge difference. Last fall, 55,000 people commented on herring legislation in New England, and totally turned the tide showing that public participation can be helpful. So many of us love the ocean, and there’s a reason why it draws us the way it does,” Rigney said.
Rigney, a salt and fresh water fisherman for nearly 40 years, doesn’t fish much anymore.
“In part of the book, I investigated what is happening on the fish end of the line, and I know what’s going on now and some fish actually do feel pain. This doesn’t mean, though, that I don’t believe with my whole heart that recreational and commercial fishing has a place,” Rigney said.
“I never would have written this book, or become the committed ocean activist and conservationist that I am, if I had not spent so many years of my life fishing. It’s because I was changed by the ocean that it made me want to befriend it.”
In “Pursuit of Giant’s is available in hardcover or eBook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound and Powell’s. To learn more about Rigney, visit www.inpursuitofgiants.com