Needlefish fishing in Canh Duong sea village

(QBĐT) - Canh Duong (Quang Trach) is one of the fishing villages with the largest fishing fleet in the province. And what is special is that most of the fishermen in this fishing village are involved in the offshore fishing profession of catching needlefish. This is a traditional profession that contains many interesting things…

"Father to son" profession

Located on the poetic Loan River, Canh Duong village resembles a boat anchored peacefully on the blue sea. The village is also one of the "Eight famous fragrances" of Quang Binh land.

According to history books, Canh Duong fishing village was established in the year of Quy Mui (1643), which is exactly 380 years old. The villagers originated from Nghe An and Thanh Hoa, migrated here and have been associated with the seafaring profession for generations.

Canh Duong fishing village. Photo: Pham Van Thuc.

Although they make a living by fishing, what is special compared to other fishing villages in the region is that most of the fishermen in Canh Duong do the same job - catching hairtail. No one knows when the profession of catching hairtail began, but it is known that it is a profession that has been passed down from father to son and has been maintained by the fishermen to this day.

According to Canh Duong fishermen, the hairtail is a special fish, known as the dragon-bodied sea fish because of its silvery appearance and the fins running along its back. Adult hairtail is about 1m long, weighs from 0.8-2kg, many can reach 3kg. With high nutritional value, hairtail is classified as a nutritious food that is popular with many people. This is a fish that lives on the bottom, about 150-200m below sea level. Therefore, to catch hairtail, fishermen mainly use offshore fishing, hundreds of nautical miles from the coast.

Old fishermen in Canh Duong said that in the past, their ancestors went fishing on small boats and used their experience to look at the water, predict the wind direction to find the fish in the vast ocean. Gradually, their descendants built bigger boats, equipped with modern equipment such as compasses, GPS, detectors... to help make fishing for fish more convenient.

However, in any era, the fishing for hairtail in Canh Duong fishing village only uses hand lines (meaning holding them in the hand to fish), not spreading long nets underwater like fishing for other types of seafood. Hairtail lives on the bottom, so to catch hairtail, fishermen use bamboo fishing rods about 18m long, connected to a 150-200m long fishing line attached to a fishing line (each line has 2 hooks) with a lead weight of more than 1kg.

The bait for catching mackerel is mainly mackerel, however, when they cannot catch mackerel, fishermen use the mackerel themselves, cut into small pieces of 15cm long and 2cm wide, as bait. On average, each fishing boat uses about 10 fishing rods at the same time, spread out on both sides of the boat and each fisherman can be in charge of 2 fishing rods. After casting the line, the fisherman looks at the tip of the rod to see if the fish has taken the bait. When the fish has taken the bait, he must use his hand to pull the line up to pull the fish up. On average, it takes a skilled fisherman about 5 minutes to catch a fish like this.

Traders buy hookfish from fishermen in Canh Duong.

Mr. Pham Van Tri (65 years old), one of the experienced fishermen in Canh Duong fishing village, said that fishing trips for hairtail usually last about half a month. Unlike other fishing jobs, although they are on the same boat, each fisherman catches his own portion and shares it, so skilled fishermen will have high incomes. On average, skilled fishermen catch 4-5 quintals per trip, many lucky fishermen can catch 1 ton of hairtail. However, there are also many newbies and unlucky ones whose catch is not enough to compensate for their labor.

According to old fisherman Pham Van Tri, fishing for hairtail is a hard job, because hairtail is a nocturnal animal, so fishermen have to stay up all night to fish. Along with that, fishermen have to use their hands to reel in the line, so with the weight of the lead, the fish and the resistance of the water, it can sometimes be up to tens of kilograms. Therefore, when reeling in the line, although fishermen wear gloves, their hands are often cut by the line and injured. But the most difficult is when the weather turns windy and rains heavily. At those times, hairtail often eats a lot of bait, but that is also when fishermen have to face the most dangers...

Fishing for threadfin shad is getting harder and harder.

“Although fishing for threadfin shad is hard, tiring and the income is getting lower and lower, we are determined to keep the job. This is not only a traditional job passed down from our ancestors but also an environmentally friendly job (because we only catch large fish) and do not destroy the marine resources,” fisherman Nguyen Ngoc Dung affirmed.

These days, at the Roon River wharf, dozens of fishing boats of Canh Duong fishermen line up to dock for a honeymoon after a nearly half-month long fishing trip for threadfin shad. As soon as the boat docked, fisherman Nguyen Ngoc Dung (Tan Canh village, Canh Duong commune) immediately called his family for support and contacted traders to come buy the fish.

Mr. Dung said that on this trip, his boat had 6 "friends" and caught 1 ton of hairtail. With this output, if before 2019, when the Covid-19 pandemic had not yet occurred, hairtail would have been purchased by traders at 150,000 VND/kg for export to China, the revenue would have been about 200 million VND. However, at present, traders only purchase hairtail for 80-90,000 VND/kg, so the revenue has dropped to about 100 million VND, after deducting expenses, there is not much profit left.

Most of the fishermen in Canh Duong practice offshore fishing.

Mr. Dung shared that a few decades ago, when the sea was still rich in seafood resources, each fishing trip often brought 3-4 hairtail fish hooked at the same time, so the fishing time was shorter, the yield was higher and the fishermen's income was also higher. However, in recent years, due to many reasons, the aquatic resources are gradually depleting, and hairtail fishermen no longer have as many fruitful fishing trips as before.

What Mr. Dung and many fishermen who fish for needlefish in Canh Duong fishing village hope for in the long term is that fishing and exploitation of aquatic products must be carried out according to plan; no hunting of juvenile fish; the marine environment must be protected, so that aquatic resources continue to regenerate. Only then will fishing boats confidently go out to sea, continue to maintain the traditional profession, bring prosperity to their families, enrich their homeland and contribute to protecting the sovereignty of the sacred sea and islands of the Fatherland.

Phan Phuong

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