Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Sep 3: This time, the fishing season began a month behind. Still, on the first two days of the season, the fishermen had a rich harvest. Their nets were full of kingfish during this period. Kingfish commands a good price in the market.

About 1,250 trawl boats and over 300 purse seine and other boats in addition to country boats function from the dock here. About 20 per cent of these boats have left for fishing. Purse seine boats return to the base on the same day while trawl boats return after remaining at sea for one to two weeks. Purse seine boats are bringing fish to the dock now and the first batch of trawl boats may start to return from September 7 onward.

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A fish merchant at the dock Sridhar said that the market received a huge inflow of kingfish on Wednesday. He said that big size kingfishes commanded price between Rs 400 to 600 a kg. "Because of the large catches, the rate, which was Rs 700 to 800 in the past, came down. Now people are able to get fresh fish.  More fishes can be expected to be received from the second week of September onward," he explained.

The fishing season normally begins on August 1. But because of the after-effects of COVID 19 pandemic, the season began on September 1. In the previous season, fishing had almost come to a halt after March 25. This had caused huge loss to the fishermen.

Deputy director in the department of fisheries Parshwanath said that about 30 purse seine boats and 240 trawl boats left for fishing during the first two days. He said that people are happy about getting fresh kingfish while fishermen are happy about their good catches. He said that there were certain fish which weighed over seven to eight kg each.