Indian Fish and Fishing by Francis Day

Author:Francis Day
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. Clowes and Sons
Published: 1883-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

here given show (i) the size of the mesh in a drag-net employed during the rains in Orissa. As the water subsides and the fishermen are able to wade up to their waists, the size of the mesh is increased (No. 2); and as the waters begin to clear, No. 3 comes into use; and in the cold months No. 4. Young fry commence moving about at the first freshes.

The fixed engines employed in India and Burmah (see Plate I.) are mainly divisible into two forms—(i) those manufactured of cotton, hemp, aloe fibre, coir, or some such material; and (2) others constructed of split bamboo, rattan, reed, grass, or some more or less inelastic substance. Those which are manufactured of elastic substances include all stake-nets, but when the meshes are of a fair size, they are a legitimate means, when properly employed, for the capture of fish, but are occasionally to be deprecated, especially when used solely to take such as are breeding. But in some of these implements the size of the mesh is so minute that no fish are able to pass. There it stands, immovably fixed across an entire waterway, capturing everything, the water being literally strained through it. In one instance, in the Punjab, a wlK)le drove of mahaseer were observed to be captured by natives fixing a net across a river, and then dragging another down to it, thus occasioning wholesale destruction, and ruining the rod-fishing for the succeeding season. This plan is a very common procedure throughout India, as is also constructing earthen dams across streams, leaving a channel or opening through their centre, where a purse-net is fixed, and arrests every descending fish. The largest numbers are taken towards the end of the rainy season, for as the waters fall, countless lakes and pools of all sizes are formed on the low lands in the vicinity of rivers. These, which during the floods were lateral extensions of the stream, now become lakes, having one or more narrow out-

lets into the river ; across each opening nets are stretched, or a weir of grass constructed, and every fish which has wandered up becomes a certain prey to the fishermen.

Fixed engines constructed of non-elastic substances are still more destructive to fish than are such as are made of net, and which are more liable to be injured. Their forms are exceedingly numerous, their sizes infinite, while the interstices, between the substances of which the weirs or traps are composed, appear everywhere much the same, whether examined in the ghits of Canara, the Yomas of Pegu, the Himalayas, or on the plains of India or Burmah. Still, local influences must occasion certain modifications, while some are solely employed for taking large fish, others for fry, and a few are employed for both. In hilly districts, as the monsoon floods subside, and the impetuosity of the mountain torrents has decreased, they can be erected without being liable to be washed away. Up the hill streams (as I

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