Fishing ban to start on April 15

TRABZON

The annual fishing ban is set to begin on April 15 and will continue till Sept 1, as fishermen who have already anchored their boats start preparations for the forthcoming season, repairing ripped nets and carrying out boat maintenance.

Until Sept. 1, 2023, industrial seine vessels will not be able to cast their nets into the sea, but fishermen with small boats will be able to catch fish. In the previous fishing season, the most caught fish was bonito, while anchovies and horse mackerel were quite scarce.

Cabir Köroğlu, a fisherman in the northern province of Trabzon, stated that they closed the season in March due to the lack of the expected anchovy catch around Georgia this season and that they started preparations for the next season.

Köroğlu said that bonito hunting will start as of Sept. 1, and anchovy hunting will start about two months after the bonito hunting, adding that they called it quits early this year.

“We can say that the high fuel costs affected us economically as well. We are currently dealing with the maintenance works of our nets,” he said.

Birol Kaya, one of the boat workers, stated that the season was good for some boats as few of them got lucky in terms of hunting, yet most boats closed the season before April 15.

Ayhan Arslan, another fisherman who hunts in the Black Sea, stated that the bonito catch was productive but that the decrease in other species, such as horse mackerel and small bluefish, is concerning.

Stressing that the impacts of marine pollution and climate change have shown themselves more, Arslan said the migration routes of fish have changed with the change in the temperature of the seas, and some fish show resistance to enter the Marmara Sea due to pollution.

“The increase in the sea temperatures also has a great effect. The first approach to solve the problem may be to set quotas for all fishermen and block the Bosphorus to fishing. If more areas get closed to fishing, the fish population can get balanced,” he added.