General features of the catfish fisheries

Abstract

Catfishes had formed significant seasonal fisheries along the west and east coasts of the country since the early artisanal days, but had seldom been viewed as anything more than of local importance. The traditional gears were mostly aimed at pelagic fisheries and caught demersal species by the way when they fished in shallower coastal areas and the gear took in the bottom layers also. So the ground fish contribution to the country's total marine fish landings was small. Thus, in the earlier years of our concern with the assessment and development of marine fisheries, the sardine and mackerel fisheries easily caught the attention as national fisheries, and the prawn fisheries rapidly turned into an export-oriented industry and assumed tremendous importance as a foreign-exchange earner. Many others, potentially significant, tended to be passed over, and the catfish fishery was among them.