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CRAFTSMANSHIP AND A KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE A coastal fisherman is bound to certain limited fishing grounds. Fixed sites for the gear, adaptation to the local natural conditions and the short operating distances due to small vessels keep the coastal fishermen in their home districts. It is a common practice that the same fishing grounds are used year after year and from generation to generation. Many external factors contribute to permanence of the fishing grounds. Coastal fishermen usually operate in regions where a permission from the owner of the waters is required for fishing. A fisherman has to learn to know the natural conditions and the movements of the fish in his fishing area through years of experience, and he builds his gear on the basis of the information thus gained or inherited. This makes it difficult to move rapidly to a new fishing area. A coastal fisherman has, more often than his colleague on the open sea, a place of his own by the sea with a quay and all the buildings required. At present coastal fishery suffers from pollution and over-fertilisation of waters especially off big industrial towns. Also different construction and energy production projects make fishing difficult in areas with a potential market for fish. A VERSATILE PLACE OF WORK The conditions along
the long coastline of Finland vary substantially. Half a year
of open waters and with the other covered with ice makes a true
challenge for the fisheries. Winter time calls for special vessels
and gear. Our natural conditions are unique in the whole world
and uttermost ingenuity and toughness is required of the fishermen.
The challenging conditions also affect the equipment and the
methods used. The depth and shelteredness of the waters, and
the target species together with the knowhow determine the type
of the gear. A method that gives good results in the archipelago
does not necessarily work further out at sea: it is not rational
to fish for pike-perch using whitefish gill nets, for example.
Profitable operation often requires a suitable combination of
gear. The variety of the gear is reflected in the variety of the vessels used by coastal fishermen. There is no single solution. A gill net fisher in the archipelago can do with an open boat equipped with an outboard motor. A salmon fisher using trap nets on an unsheltered coast needs two or three different vessels for the setting and emptying of his gear. WITH GILL NETS AND TRAP NETS There are two different
modes of operation in coastal fishery. Some fishermen specialise
in fishing with gill nets, the others prefer trap nets. The main
target species for the gill net fishers are whitefish and pike-perch,
whereas the trap net fishers fish for whitefish and salmon. The
best catches of whitefish are caught in the Quark and in the
Bothnian Bay area. Pike-perch is the major target species in
the Turku archipelago and in the Gulf of Finland. Migrating whitefish
are also caught with drift nets, especially in the Bothnian The large fyke nets were earlier used mainly for catching herring. Today they are hoopless and of larger mesh, and different versions of them are used for catching salmon and whitefish all along the coastline. It is an expensive gear requiring an investment of tens of thousands of marks. This gear also is mainly used in the Quark and in the Bothnian Bay area. |
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