Stormy sea forces fishermen to take holiday early this time

Mangaluru: The fishing season 2021-22 (August to June) is over early this time. Thanks to the cyclones and heavy rains and stormy sea conditions the fishermen have already called it a typical fishing year and have begun hauling up their vessels onto the shore. Though the fisheries department has not officially announced the days for monsoon fishing holidays yet, the fishermen say that the condition in the sea is not conducive for fishing.

Though the fishing ban officially comes into effect on 10 June the fishing department has given a warning to them not to venture into the sea and ordered those vessels already on the sea to return. Though the current situation on the Arabian sea is not due to an active southwest monsoon system, in the next three days the monsoon is going to anyway enter Kerala which will definitely keep the sea rough. The local fishermen have already felt that they must get back to the shore, say fishermen leaders.

About 800 boats of different sizes and capacities, including trawlers, Purse-seines, and longliners are already on the high seas and they go up to 50 meters fathom depth. "We have found the seas calmer at that depth and we can still fish for another ten days without any problems but since our owner has asked us to return we have come back to the shore of course with a good catch of Mackerels and Cuttlefish," said Santhosh Bangera, a fishermen leader.

The department traditionally announces the fishing ban period anywhere between the 3rd to the 4th week of May, it has also made the insurance compulsory for the fishing boat that go into the sea for the fishing season. But once the storm alert is given even with the current insurance cover the vessel cannot venture into the sea.In case of loss of life and property the insurance will not be actionable.

Usually, the monsoon calendar States that Karnataka must get the first showers of the southwestern monsoon only by 8 June after entering the Kerala coast on 3 June. According to the deputy directors of the three coastal districts of Karnataka of the fisheries department there were still some 300 fishing boats on the sea and some of them have already begun their return voyage by Thursday night and the remaining will start back only on Friday morning. Thanks to the modern communication gadgetry the fishermen could be contacted even at a distance of 10 nautical miles into the sea upto 50-meter meters fathom depth.

Mangalore, Udupi and Karwar coasts which are distributed between the North Malabar and Konkan coast are generally turbulent during the beginning of the monsoon and dangerous for the fishermen. The last catches during the season will bring larger size oil sardines and giant size mackerels and seers, pomfrets, squids, ribbon fish, pink perches and other types do get depleted by end of April-May.

According to the fisheries department statistics,the State generally ends up landing 2.2 lakh metric tons of fish. Overall performance of the fisheries sector for the year has seen a decline by not less than 10 per cent on an average which is nearly Rs 300 crore less in value compared to the watershed year of 1997 when the volume of the catch was to the tune of 2.7 lakh tonnes.