Fishermen enthusiastically go offshore to exploit the Southern fish season

These days, taking advantage of favorable weather, fishermen in coastal localities of Quang Tri province are enthusiastically going out to sea to catch the southern fish season. This is the seafood fishing season that brings the main output and income for fishermen. Functional sectors and localities have also proposed many solutions to accompany fishermen.

Many offshore fishing boats of fishermen in Cua Viet town "hit it big" with yellowfin tuna - Photo: HA

Crowded by the sea

From dawn at Cua Viet Fishing Port (Trieu An Commune, Trieu Phong District), many offshore fishing boat owners returning from their offshore fishing trips have been urgently selling aquatic and seafood products to traders to continue transporting food, provisions, and fuel to prepare for the southern fishing season. Fisherman Bui Dinh Chien in Quarter 6 (Cua Viet Town, Gio Linh District) said that although the southern fishing season has just begun, in recent days, taking advantage of favorable weather conditions, anchovies, mullet, yellowfin tuna, tuna, etc. have appeared in large numbers, so fishermen in Cua Viet Town are busy going offshore to catch aquatic and seafood products.

Entering the Southern fishing season this year, the oil price has decreased, leading to a significant reduction in the cost of the trip, so fishermen are very excited and confident that they will catch a large amount of aquatic and seafood products of all kinds. Mr. Chien's offshore fishing fleet of 3 boats with a capacity of 800 - 900 CV/boat, specializing in trawling, squid fishing and squid traps, each offshore trip lasts from 15 - 20 days. To prepare for this year's Southern fishing season, Mr. Chien has carefully repaired and refurbished the boat, fishing gear, fish finder, ICOM machine, and journey monitoring equipment.

“Currently, my family’s offshore fishing fleet has fully prepared food, provisions, and fuel to go offshore and stay at sea for a long time during the Southern fishing season. In 2023, my family’s offshore fishing fleet will have a revenue of nearly 7 billion VND from catching aquatic and seafood products.

“Since the Lunar New Year of Giap Thin until now, my family’s offshore fishing fleet has earned nearly 1.5 billion VND from trawling, squid fishing and squid traps. For us fishermen, going offshore to catch aquatic and marine products not only brings income to our families but also contributes to protecting the sovereignty of our country’s seas and islands,” Mr. Chien shared.

Fisherman Tran Viet Thanh in Village 4 (Gio Hai Commune, Gio Linh District) said that since the beginning of 2024, his 400 CV offshore fishing boat has had 4 trips to catch hairtail with super-tangled gillnets in the fishing grounds around Con Co Island with an average catch of 600 - 800 kg of hairtail/trip; the current market price purchased by traders ranges from 100 - 120 thousand VND/kg of hairtail, so each trip will bring in an income of 70 - 100 million VND.

Entering the Southern fishing season, fishermen working with super-tangled gillnets in Gio Hai, Gio Viet communes and Cua Viet town (Gio Linh district) always hope that departments, branches, and localities will find ways to support capital sources for fishermen to invest in purchasing more super-tangled gillnets to catch hairtail.

In fact, the super-tangled gillnets of fishermen from Thanh Hoa, Nam Dinh, Quang Binh provinces... when fishing in the fishing grounds around Con Co Island are always 8-10 nautical miles long, so the output of catching hairtail fish is therefore twice as much as the offshore fishing boats of fishermen from Quang Tri (the super-tangled gillnets of fishermen from Quang Tri are only 2-4 nautical miles long); each trip to catch hairtail fish has an income of 1-2 billion VND, which is normal.

Support for fishermen

Vice Chairwoman of Gio Viet Commune People's Committee Hoang Thi Thu Thuy said that in recent days, many offshore fishing boats of Gio Viet Commune have been urgently going offshore to catch aquatic and seafood products. Gio Viet Commune (Gio Linh District) has 128 fishing boats and boats with a total capacity of 19,054 CV. Since the Lunar New Year of Giap Thin, fishermen in the commune have "hit the jackpot" with yellow catfish, anchovy, etc.

On average, each fishing trip (lasting from 1 to 3 days), each boat catches from 1 to 7 tons of fish. With a selling price of about 70,000 VND/kg of yellow catfish, from 14,000 to 15,000 VND/kg of anchovy, it has brought hundreds of millions of VND in income to fishermen. In the first quarter of 2024, the total output of aquatic and seafood products of Gio Viet commune reached 1,290 tons.

Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Huu Vinh said that the Southern fishing season is the main aquatic and seafood exploitation season of the year with many types of exploitation industries, diverse fishing objects, especially pelagic fish resources such as mackerel, anchovy, mullet, herring, silver pomfret...

The Southern fishing season always brings high output as well as the main source of income for fishermen. Currently, although the Southern fishing season has just begun, taking advantage of favorable weather, most of the fishermen's offshore fishing vessels, especially offshore fishing vessels using purse seine, gillnet, and scoop net, etc., have gone offshore to fish with high efficiency. In the first quarter of 2024, the total output of aquatic and marine products in the province is estimated at 6,879.5 tons. This is an optimistic signal, opening up hope for a bumper seafood fishing season for fishermen.

To support fishermen in exploiting the Southern fish season effectively, ensuring the planned output of aquatic products and contributing to protecting the sovereignty of the sea and islands of the Fatherland, the agricultural sector has directed specialized agencies to actively coordinate with coastal localities to focus on directing and guiding the implementation of solutions to improve the efficiency of aquatic and seafood exploitation such as enhancing weather forecasting, providing information on fishing grounds and aquatic resources to help fishermen have effective exploitation plans.

Organize fishing and seafood exploitation activities at sea in groups, teams, etc. to support each other in production, especially in distant fishing grounds; promote production in some fishing and seafood exploitation industries that consume less fuel, use ships with suitable capacity to save fuel; mobilize fishermen to maintain, repair, and service boats as well as supplement and improve fishing gear and equipment for effective fishing; apply advanced technology to improve the quality of aquatic and seafood products in preservation, minimizing post-exploitation losses.

Promote the activities of logistics services for fisheries at sea such as purchasing aquatic and seafood products, providing fuel and necessities right at sea and on islands to reduce fuel costs when fishing vessels return to port to unload products; organize propaganda and mobilize businesses and traders to purchase and consume aquatic products in the area to share benefits with fishermen in the production and exploitation value chain to increase product value, especially only organizing the purchase and unloading of aquatic and seafood products from fishing vessels at fishing ports in accordance with regulations, in order to contribute to the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Instruct fishermen to take advantage of favorable weather conditions to go offshore, stick to the sea to catch aquatic and marine products and expand fishing grounds in offshore areas; apply some advanced technologies to access and organize fishing in fishing grounds inside and outside the province suitable for each type of fishing industry and size of fishing vessels; encourage fishermen to increase their participation in fishing in offshore areas to contribute to protecting the sovereignty of the sea and islands of the Fatherland.

Closely monitor and synthesize the situation of fishermen's activities and production efficiency to promptly propose solutions to support fishermen to ensure safe and effective production; effectively implement the contents of Official Dispatch No. 1058/CD-TTg dated November 4, 2023 of the Prime Minister on focusing on implementing urgent tasks and solutions, focusing on combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing...

Hai An

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