- [John] Hawai'i fish can compete with the world.
It's a wild catch.
It's Jack in the box.
- The fish business
is early in the morning
as you can see.
- United Fishing Agency
has been in business since the 1950s.
We are located at Pier 38
in Honolulu Harbor,
in the island of Oahu, in Hawai'i.
And you know these vessels, you know,
they have the capacity to carry 20 to 30,000 pounds each.
It's not saying that
they're gonna catch that much when they go out.
You know, fishing is fishing.
And for an overall day,
we can do anywhere from 50 to 100,000 pounds,
and we'll adjust to that,
and the market will adjust to that.
The target of the fishery is the bigeye tuna.
And we catch a variety of other tunas as well.
Yellowfin, albacore, skipjack.
I've seen 300-pound bigeye tuna come in.
I've seen 1,000-pound blue marlin.
I've seen 500 to 600-pound swordfish.
And the market has really picked up
on pretty much all of these species.
The fish are palletized and they're taken out
to our auction floor,
where it's prioritized by tunas,
and then the incidental catches.
Size does not always equal better quality.
You can't tell just by looking
at the external parts of a fish,
to see if it's gonna be great quality.
That's why we do the tail
and the core cut sample on tunas.
And you know that adds a variability
to how we do business here.
We're on the first boat of the day.
And these are the marker tunas,
the tunas over 100 pounds.
So, what I'm looking at right now,
is 111 pound bigeye tuna.
And I'm looking at a really nice quality fish right here.
There's not that much fat.
But the color content, the texture,
it's very firm.
It's something that a lot of buyers look for.
You're looking at local sushi bars,
the sashimi market, the raw fish market.
But you know, this would be close to the top,
the top of the grade-chain for most buyers.
The main defects that could occur,
on any fish really,
is shark depredation,
our false killer whale depredation.
You know, these fish again are hooked on the line
and could be on that line for any number of hours,
and within that time,
smaller sharks known as cookiecutter sharks,
that will take a circular cut out of any species
on the floor and it'll leave that disfiguration on a fish.
A mako shark can up and just take half of it off.
The way that we actually work the auction,
it's up to the discretion of the auctioneer.
We have to feel out where the market is.
You know, where it's been,
maybe over the course of a week.
If a number one is worth
between eight to ten dollars a pound,
to make sure that we start the bidding,
at at least that if not higher,
just to make sure we don't undervalue it.
And once we start the bidding,
we'll start at 10 dollars and if nobody bids,
we'll go to 9.90, to 9.80, 9.70 and so on,
until a buyer puts his hand out and bids on that fish,
and at that point it could be over for that product,
or another buyer can come back on top of them,
and start putting the price back up,
so then we'll increase back up ten cent increments.
So we were looking at 111-pound bigeye earlier,
which is a very good grade.
I could really think of five or six buyers
that might wanna purchase that fish.
And you know, I won't know until
the moment of purchase, so.
'Cause they know what they're willing to pay.
We just have to figure out what that is.
(cowbell rings)
- The difficulties of buying fresh tuna
is basically we can only see the tail cuts and grade
upon the tail cuts, and the exterior and the color.
Until you cut the fish open,
and really see what's inside,
it can be very very good,
or it can turn out very very bad.
(auctioneer offers bids)
Everybody has their own difference in grading tunas.
My number one may not be your number one.
If you was to grade
maybe you might another tuna as the number one.
[John] - Every day I try to hype myself up
and think that I'm buying the best for my customer.
Colors and certain feels of the fish,
it's talking to you.
All this in a split second,
before the bid really starts on it.
I've been a tuna buyer for 12 years.
But I originated into the tuna business by fishing.
I do 98% export.
It's gonna be another day or day an a half
before it gets there.
So my fish has to be even at a higher level.
American people usually like
what the Japanese like to call akami,
which is means color.
Abura, which is the fat.
They are looking for - sushi bars, are looking for fat.
Each fish has a place, has a home for it.
You just have to know what the customer is looking for.
Tuna alone like yesterday, I bought I think 6,000 pounds.
Today I don't know how much I'm gonna buy yet.
I fluctuates day to day.
It's worse than the stock market.
It can go all the way up and go all the way down.
- The personalities that come with dealing with
a multitude of buyers.
Everyone's friends, you know.
But you know, it's business.
And.
When the competition starts, you know,
it can be a little heated.
If the customer's calling and telling me he needs this fish,
I cannot not get it because of a friendship,
or because of something else.
I've gone to some strategy moves to get some fish.
You know, I'm not gonna say that
I've been all nice about it.
You have to do what you have to do
to get your customers.
Because if I don't supply them.
Believe, somebody else will.
They'll get angry at each other.
- They'll get angry at the auctioneer.
And you know, but you know, as an auctioneer,
you have to be impartial,
you have to maintain your ground,
and really hold up the standards
that we're trying to set here.
- You nitpick and stuff on a daily basis here.
After we walk outta here, we can shake hands,
and go each lunch and stuff.
- Tuna is so special to me
is because it's the last industry that we have out here.
- We specialize in items
that are a little bit hard to source.
You name it, we can bring it in.
So whatever comes in today, will be out today.
Two primary problems that we find in tuna specially, right,
are burn and sashi.
Burn occurs when fish is struggling on a line, right?
That's almost a kid to, making a ceviche,
where the acid cooks the raw fish a little bit, right?
Right at the crown of the loins.
And so that radically devalues the fish,
because simply put it,
it tastes like (bleep).
Sashi is actually a parasite.
'Cause as a sashi, the individual parasite dies.
Every single piece of the meat
that surrounds that parasite that it touched, also dies.
And so that ruins, you know,
the quality of the meat of course.
It doesn't taste good.
(cheers)
- This has a lighter color,
because it has a higher fat content
than this particular loin.
This particular loin is pretty much color only,
with very little fat.
So it's a very lean fish.
As you can see there's a color change
right from this ruby red down to this lighter color.
And so this is the fat line over here, the abura.
You kinda tell how fatty it is
by just looking at the difference in the color of this fish.
The belly section over here is a little lighter
than the other one.
One, two. Two finger fat.
The special quality about Hawaiian line caught tunas,
is something that is difficult for me to describe,
because having grown up here,
it's been naturalized.
And so I almost take it for granted sometimes,
that we'll have good quality fish here.
- We got a nice 18-pound bigeye here.
This is a quarter loin.
We get a fish through Tropic Fish,
and they choose the fish at the auction,
and send it to us.
We prefer bigeye for the fat content.
A lot of people in Hawai'i really prize
of the more fattier pieces of fish,
which is why ahi is usually better in the winter time,
because of the colder water.
It means more fat on the fish.
You can kinda just see the gradient
that it runs along.
This is closer to the skin inside,
so there it's where all the fat content stays.
- You know we're a year-round tuna fishery,
raw tuna it's kind of a staple in Hawai'i culture.
- I've been in the industry for 20 years now.
Little over 20 years maybe.
And even after 20 plus years,
I'm still learning something new daily.
On a daily basis, six days a week,
5:30 every morning.
It's a daily grind.
- It's a small community.
We stare across each other for 12 years,
back and forth.
Doing the same product but reinventing yourself every day.
- You know years ago, this was truly God's country.