Hello.
For those of us chasing bluefin tuna in the Genkai Sea or Hokkaido, it's impossible to avoid discussions about "rules" and "regulations." Bluefin tuna is the "ultimate target" that anglers want to face head-on someday. However, this fish has now become not only an object of fishing for anglers worldwide but also a complex "object to contend with regulations."

This time, I'd like to consider it from a slightly different perspective. Japan, North America, and Europe (UK). What are the anglers in these three regions actually dealing with when they cast their lines? What emerged was not merely a "difference in regulatory strictness," but a deeper, more fundamental difference in "how we anglers are treated" within the management system.

JAPAN: Rules suddenly descended upon a once-free sea.

When discussing recreational bluefin tuna fishing in Japan, the first fact to acknowledge is that "there were virtually no regulations until very recently." For both charter boats and pleasure boats, restrictions were effectively zero. Many anglers routinely fished for schools of tuna in areas like off Sado Island and the Sea of Japan.

However, in June 2021, rules suddenly appeared in these waters in the form of a directive from the wide-area fisheries coordination committee. Currently, the main rules from an angler's perspective are as follows:

Thanks to this system, bluefin tuna resources have dramatically recovered. As of 2026, just five years since the system's implementation, monster tuna migrations have been observed in various locations. Monster tuna, previously unimaginable in areas other than Aomori, are now approaching the coast. All of us anglers are witnesses to this.

Our true feelings are encapsulated in this one statement from the beginning of the system: "At the very least, we wish catch-and-release fishing were allowed." While we understand the rationale for resource conservation, there's a lingering feeling that the enjoyment of fishing itself has been denied.

The essential problem here is not the severity of the penalties. Japan's Fisheries Act has a weak framework for positioning "recreational fishing" in the sea, and from the outset, we anglers had no basis to sit at the table for system design as stakeholders. Therefore, rules are determined, in a sense, unilaterally from above as "notifications" rather than "discussions." The cost of having a culture as "harvesters" but no system as "protectors" is rapidly becoming apparent in Japan. Even those who introduced the system have been experimenting for five years. However, they must be feeling positive about the significant result of resource recovery, right?

NORTH AMERICA — A Sea of Permitting Systems from Birth

Crossing the Atlantic to America, the premise of fishing spots changes fundamentally. In the US, if you're targeting bluefin tuna, an HMS (Highly Migratory Species) permit from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is mandatory for the boat. There's no option for a permit for shore fishing, and violating this can result in a $2,000 fine even for a first offense.

However, in return, the rules are surprisingly specific and deeply ingrained in the fishing community.

Here, anglers are not "objects" of management but "counted members" of it. They have their share under the name of the recreational quota, a clear reward of one trophy fish, and contribute to stock assessment through reporting and tagging. Commercial and recreational fishing are placed within the same framework, and anglers seem to be integrated as part of the numbers from the start!

EUROPE / UK — Anglers who raised their voices, saying "Let us fish"

The most dramatic case is the UK. Originally, targeting bluefin tuna in UK waters was illegal. However, from around 2015, large numbers of bluefin tuna began returning to the nearshore waters in autumn. Anglers were in a situation where monster tuna were right in front of them, but they couldn't cast a line. It wasn't the administration that acted, but surprisingly, the anglers themselves.

A handful of anglers involved politicians and scientists to design legal sport fisheries. In 2021, a research program called "CHART (Catch & Release Tagging)" was launched, creating a system where anglers don't "harvest" but "catch, measure, tag, and release" to scientifically verify data.

Reddit and UK angling organizations finally took action, and the UK moved towards full liberalization of recreational fishing specifically for catch-and-release (C.R.R.F.). * Catch & Release Recreational Fishing

What is noteworthy here is that angler organizations are at the table for policy design alongside the government. Anglers are not "the regulated" but "the creators of the fishery," and co-operators in ecosystem conservation through data. Isn't the UK an example we should emulate?

THREE SEATS, COMPARED — Same Rod, Different Chair

There's no point in competing over who has the strictest rules. My research shows that no sea is lenient. What differs is the "type of chair" one sits in.
Japanese anglers are made to sit in the "managed chair," North American anglers sit in the "counted chair," and UK anglers sit in a "self-created chair." Even if you catch the same bluefin tuna, the meaning of that single fish within the system is completely different.

THE PATH FOR JAPANESE ANGLERS — Future Course from the Fishing Deck

The dramatic recovery of bluefin tuna in just five years should be joyful news for us anglers. The fact that it's often discussed in tandem with the gloom of "regulations becoming stricter in inverse proportion to resource recovery" is precisely because anglers have consistently been kept outside the conversation about management. From the perspective of the fishing deck, the path forward, which should be discussed carefully, is:

Release scene in the Genkai Sea. Connecting life to the future ocean.

In this sea where bluefin tuna have returned, what will be tested next may not be the number of fish, but our "maturity as anglers." The view from the boat deck is also a reflection of the system. If the day comes when Japanese tuna anglers proactively sit in "self-created chairs," then the news of recovery will finally be something we can celebrate wholeheartedly. Amberjack will continue to cast lines in the field and hopes to think with you about the future of the ocean.