Public Story
Fishing techniques
Summary
I show you three different fishing techniques on Lac Ahémé, Possotomé region, Benin (west Africa).
The lake is 24 kilometers long and it has an average width of 3.6 kilometers. There are 45 villages around, so many pression to the lake due to fishing activities.
Fishermen start fishing at about six o'clock in the morning, and also during the night to take shrimps. Fishing lasts between two and four hours. In a day they can fish from 1 to 5 thousands of shrimps and small fishes. After fishing, women buy the fishes and sell them at the market.
Fisherman showed us three fishing techniques.
First one is called 'la pêche aux crabes' (fishing crabes): it consists of placing small baskets in the water that are picked up once a day. It is a technique that requires luck since you have to lift the small trap when a crab feeds on the bait, consisting of a small salted tilapia.
Second one is called 'la pêche à la ligne': it is an old fishing technique. The baits are made from cassava flour kneaded with water to form a paste. Fishes (crabes, shrimps and other fishes) enter inside the stick and they are trapped.
Third one is called 'la pêche à l’épervier': it consists of throwing a net which unfolds in the air before falling fully deployed in the water. Fisherman waits two or three minutes for the fish to come out of the mud and become imprisoned there before slowly raising the net. During the dive, the fisherman directs the net to stop the fish before it leaps into the water, catches it with his hands and throws it on the boat.
Pictures taken with Sony Alpha 7iii and Nikon D800. October 2022.
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