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Seashore Foraging & Fishing Study

Fishing Methods  4 - Fish Traps 

1) Trap and drain - This is simple - you block, with rocks and a strong piece of tough, woven pamo netting , a channel from a pool in the reef at low tide. At the next low tide, you pull out the blocking rocks, and drain the pool. You then just scoop up the trapped fish, hoping most of them end up in the net. Almost as good as pamo netting would be coconut leaves, and this is probably what was used before nylon netting became freely available.

2) Fish Kural - A key hole shaped fenced area in shallow water. The fish are trapped as the tide ebbs, or if you are feeling energetic (difficult under a tropical sun) you can organise some beaters and drive them in. 

2) Bobo - the same name for different kinds of handmade fish traps , similar to a creel pots in Europe, but each designed for different catches.

Bobo Fish pots for general use in the lagoon - one end fitted with a stiff net funnel, and  can be raised quickly to trap and gather fish. Mounted on a 'sled' from the sea bottom, with a simple wire door underneath for extracting the fish. Most are laid in the same place for months, and become encrusted with weed and coralline algae. They are made of saplings and covered with nylon netting.

Fishermen don't like posing - there was no way this 
gentleman would pull up his bobo again just for a 
kudak, and no way he would even show himself 
again, as we pulled alongside at a distance.

Mangroves and Estuaries

Crab pots for Alimango mud crabs - used in the estuaries and mangroves. Both ends have 'non-return' valves made from sharpened bamboo strips. One is made from simple split bamboo canes, the other covered in heavy duty nylon netting.

Alimango crabs are also captured in a simple framed lift net, the Apyaw, set in the deeper channels in the mangroves.

Richard Parker - Last updated: Thursday, 20 October 2005
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