2. Development of anchovy purse seine fishing
The season for anchovy purse seine fishing is during the dry months from October to May. fishing operation is conducted at night; the boats leave the shore at around 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening and return early the next morning. Two boats are required: one to light up the sea and the other to encircle the fish that gather around the lighted water. Considerable labour is required for pulling up the nets, so 25–30 crewmen are generally hired for each set of boats. landed anchovies are sun dried on the nets spread out on the shore. The drying work is handled by women hired from the village together with the wives and daughters of the migrating crewmen. The boat owners do not go out to sea with the crew, but instead wait until their boats return to shore. They weigh the landed fish and record the details, and at the same time, they distribute small fish (other than anchovies) to the crewmen for their daily meal.
Purse seine fishing itself is not new to this area; it started around the early 1980s. However, its initial target was small shrimp (sold as a dried product). Anchovies were caught by beach seine fishing at that time.
The use of purse seine (nets) to catch anchovies started around the late 1990s original target for purse seine fishing was small shrimp; however, small-scale shrimp trawling started in the area around the same time, dramatically reducing the shrimp catch for purse seine Thus, the target was changed to anchovies.
In the early years, the fishing ground for small shrimps and anchovies was within 5 nautical miles of the coast, so only small engines (5–6 horsepower) were needed for the boats and fewer crewmen (12–15) were required. They were mostly local villagers as migrating labourers were rare at the time. Eventually, however, these boats started fishing in remote waters (10–20 nautical miles from the coast), most likely due to the decrease in catch near the coast. Accompanying the change in fishing ground was the need for larger boats and engines and a greater number of crewmen to handle the fishing operations.