Fisherfolk are netting more prawns than fish from the Bay of Bengal in the new fishing season which resumed last Wednesday after a 61-day ban. P Koteswara Rao, joint director of the department of fisheries, said this year, the trend has changed due to various reasons such as frequent rains in the pre-monsoon season, thunderstorms and movement of cyclone Roanu in the month of May. The cyclone arrived before the beginning of the fishing season and this will benefit the fisherfolk, he added. “All these weather conditions indirectly helped in growth of prawns by providing required organic feed to them in the sea. Apart from this, a high volume of prawns turned towards the shallow water from the deep sea water due to the weather conditions. Shallow water is best suited for fishing prawn,” Koteswara Rao said. Fishermen soak the nets up to 30 to 40 metres deep into the sea to catch prawn, he said. Arjilli Dasu, executive secretary of Visakhapatnam District Fishermen Youth Welfare Association, said 690 mechanised fishing boats were registered with the department of fisheries. Of them, nearly 100 boats are focusing on catching prawns as it has vast demand in India as well as other countries like Japan and the US. “If prawn availability is good, the fisherfolk can easily catch 30 to 40 tonnes in a month. If not, the prawn catch is limited to about 15 to 20 tonnes. As the weather conditions and availability of prawn in the sea is good this year, we are hoping for a good amount of prawn during the fishing season,” Arjilli Dasu said. A fisherman K Sankara Rao from the Fishing Harbour said they use ‘Disco nets’ exclusively to catch prawn. Disco Nets have nearly 40,000 to 50,000 holes. For fish, fishermen use gill nets, Rao said.
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