Purse seine fishing in Maharashtra

Purse seines are one of the important gears operated along the west coast of India for harvesting shoaling pelagic fishes, mostly oil sardine and mackerel. Purse seine fishing method invented to harvest the large shoal of pelagic fish in Maine, United State of America during 1830’s later is was spread to Norway, Sweden, Japan etc. In India purse seine was introduced on experimental basis in 1954 under Indo-Norwegian project off Quilon, Kerala and other attempt was made in Goa in 1957 when the territory was still ruled by Portuguese. The commercial purse seining taken up by the fishers in Karnataka during the mid 1970s was later adopted by the fishers in Kerala and Goa. In Maharashtra, fishers from the southern region (Ratnagiri and Sindhdurg) adopted purse seine fishing in late eighties and Mirkarwada emerged as a major base of operation for these purse seiners. In northern Maharashtra, fishers were mostly engaged in set bagnet (Dol nets) and trawl fishing until the late 1990s when a few trawl fishers shifted to purse seine fishing expecting better economic prospects