The Gambia Through My Eyes: Fishing in the ocean

When I was asked if I was interested in helping out with the gillnet study in April, which meant going to the sea, I said yes without the second thought. This net comparative study was conducted to see if different sizes of the net mesh can be used to target certain fish species (sole fish and catfish) and fishermen could possibly have better catches. Well, I was clueless in fish species and anything associated with fishing. To be honest I didn’t even know how the net was used for fishing. Most of the fishermen in the Gambia use traditional pirogues for fishing. There are few different kinds. Small boat (I would be so scared to go with it in open sea) for a single fisherman who uses the fishing rod for fishing. Bigger boat that is used for the one-day fishing (the boat is taken out to the sea few miles, probably no more than 10) – one day the nets are placed in the sea and the next taken out with the catch and placed at different location. During mari fishing the fishermen go out up to 40 miles in the sea and spend there one or more nights. The catch from these trips is very good but it can be dangerous to be out in open with such a small boat. The big boats which crew consist of up to 20 people are used for targeting specific fish schools.

For our study in April we joined the one-day fishing boat. We went together with the fishermen. The boat captain, Abdulai, and his aprentice, Ebrima. They are Senegalese like most of the fishermen working in the Gambia. In June we repeated the study for 15 days. The pictures below are from April.

Early morning...The fishermen are pushing the boats into the water.

Abdulai, boat captain, is pulling out of the water a first day catch.

Work in progress: Ebrima is pulling out the net out of water, Abdulai is untangling the catch, Gabis is measuring the length (behind the camera), Chris is weighting the fish (behind the camera) and me - recording the data.