the Old Man and the Sea; at the fish market

I believe it was in the introduction to Breakfast of Champions that Kurt Vonnegut summed up his interpretation of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. In The Old Man and the Sea, the old man goes out to sea and, after eight-four days of futility, he comes across and catches a big fish (an eighteen-foot marlin). But the fish being so big, the old man can't haul it into the boat. Instead, he lashes it against the boat and starts heading back to land. Unfortunately, the blood trail of the big fish attracts numerous sharks. By the time the old man reaches land, there is nothing left of the big fish but the bones. The lesson, says Vonnegut, and what the old man should have done upon making his catch, is this: fillet the fish, throw the rest away. 

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Fishing. So instructive.

Having said that, a good fish cutter is hard to find. One who can fillet and get the maximum yield, and quickly. I'd do everything I could to hire that dude if I ran a sushi joint. Nelson shows how its done:

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Its open season for fishing in the main islands.

Most people are not aware that the Hawaiian islands are more than just Oahu, Hawaii (proper) - aka Big Island, Maui (including Lanai), Kauai (including Nihau), and Molokai. The Western Hawaiian Islands stretch the distance of California to Texas. Takes fishermen about 2 weeks just to get out there.

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/PROJECTS/HawaiiReef/hawaiihome.shtml

Some of the goods, including my favorite, TUNA! Grade 1 Bigeye being sashimi quality, followed by Yellowfin (Grade 2), and then Skipjack for poke. The core (small cylindrical extract) allows the buyer to see the fatty content.

The BEST grade 1 tuna is the Bluefin. Unfortunately, the Bluefin is greatly overfished, and quotas, according to the ICCAT, remain too high. Members of "the 46-nation International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas voted in Marrakech, Morocco, to grant a quota of 22,000 tons for 2009. That is 7,000 tons more than what scientists from the same organization had recommended."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/25/new-bluefin-tuna-fishing-quota-criticized-1/