Saury Season Kicks Off with Larger Hauls, but Catches May Still Taper Off

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:58 JST, August 29, 2025

Fishermen are seeing larger saury catches this year, with the fish’s daily wholesale volume reaching 117 tons at Tokyo’s Toyosu Market on Thursday, an exceptional figure given the poor catches in recent years.

Since the fishing season for the autumn fish — called “sanma” in Japanese — started on Aug. 10 off Hokkaido and elsewhere, fishermen have also found bigger, fattier saury than those in recent years.

On Friday, saury caught off Hokkaido were being sold on shelves at a fish shop in Nerima Ward, Tokyo. A roughly 150-gram fish was going for ¥302 and a roughly 180-gram fish cost ¥540.

“They’re larger and fatty,” shop manager Hiroshi Watanabe said. “For the first time in years, we can offer them at affordable prices.”

Wholesales at Toyosu Market totaled 78 tons on Aug. 18, falling to 64 tons on Monday before surging to this month’s peak of 117 tons on Thursday. In contrast, daily wholesale volumes reached around 60 tons at most about this time last year.

Saury this year weigh around 130 to 140 grams on average, about 20 grams larger than those caught in recent years, according to a nationwide cooperative for saury fishing.

“We’re enjoying the best start in recent years,” said Kohei Oishi, an executive at the cooperative, adding that the larger catches seem to be due to “improvements in international management of resources and favorable feed conditions in the sea.”

In 2022, the annual saury catch hit a record low of about 18,000 tons, and this year’s haul is expected to be on the smaller side like last year’s, according to the Fisheries Agency.

“We hope people will enjoy the fish as soon as possible, as we don’t know how long this bounty will last,” said Oishi.