Big-game tunny fishing off Scarborough

The Tunny Club, East Sandgate, Scarborough Harbour, Yorkshire

Big-game tunny fishing off Scarborough was a sport practised by wealthy aristocrats and military officers mostly in the 1930s. The British Tunny Club was founded in Scarborough in 1933 and had its headquarters there. The Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus Thynnus) (or "tunny" as it was known in Britain at the time) is a large and powerful fish, arguably the strongest fish in the world, which is frequently the target of big-game fishermen. Off the Yorkshire coast in that era various records were made (including a world record) for size of tunny caught with rod and line. Tunny was present in the North Sea until the 1950s when commercial herring and mackerel fishing depleted its food supply and it became extirpated.