A preliminary account of the fisheries of Vizhinjam

As a part of the research programme of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Station, it was decided in 1948 to conduct a survey of the Indian coastline to estimate the marine fish landing s,and to find out the types of fish stocks available. As very little work (Bal and Banerji, 1951) has been done in the past regarding the fishery resources of our country, a preliminary survey was found essential before embarking on the final programme. With this in view, the author conducted a preliminary survey in 1949 to ascertain the number of fishing villages, boats, nets and fishermen along the coastal strip extending from Cape Comorin in the south to Ponnani River in Malabar District in the north. Based on the data thus collected, the final design to estimate the landings was made. Initially five observation centres, Blangad in South Malabar, Narakkal and Malippuram in Trichur District, Wadi in Quilon District, and Vizhingam in Trivandrum District, of the erstwhile Travancore-Cochin State, were selected. Regular observations were taken at these centres in 1950. From 1951 onwards observations were restricted to two centres, Narakkal and Vizhingam, and from January 1953 to August 1954 observations were confined to Vizhingam alone. From September 1954 onwards two more centres. Cape Comorin and Wadi, were also included for the estimation of fish landings. As Vizhingam is a very important fishing centre, and as data for five consecutive years were available it was decided to embody the observations in the present paper as suggested by Dr. N. K. Panikkar, the then Chief Research Officer, Central Marine Fisheries Research Station, Mandapam Camp

Studies on Raschel knotless netting

Production of knotless webbings is of recent origin in India. An attempt has been made to evaluate the quality of the product consequent to its introduction in the fishing industry. A method has been presented to fix up yarn specification for Raschel knotless nettings equivalent to a given knotted netting

Synthetic fibres for fishing gear

A variety of synthetic fibres are at present in use as fishing gear material, the earliest one being the polyvinyl chloride group introduced for traps in 1936 (von. Brandt 1957). Since then synthetic fibres became increasingly popular among the advanced fishing nations of the world. The latest synthetic fibre which has been successfully used in fishing is polypropylene developed in Italy in 1954

Effect of weight of otter boards on the horizontal opening of trawl nets

The paper gives briefly the experiments carried out to determine the optimum weight of otter board that should be used for a trawl gear for better efficiency

Parallel twin-body trawl for shrimps, its design and efficiency

Comparative studies with a new 17 m parallel twin-body trawl and a 17 m bulged belly trawl conducted off Cochin during 1974-77 are reported. The parallel twin body trawl showed an increase of 28% in catch over that of bulged belly with a break up of 39.9% and 23.1 % for prawns and fishes respectively. The increase in catch is attributed to the extra wide mouth opening (26.6 %) of the parallel twin-body trawl. Parallel twin-body trawl had 8.96% lesser resistance which resulted in lower utilization of horse power

Not Available

Not AvailableAs a part of the research programme of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Station, it was decided in 1948 to conduct a survey of the Indian coastline to estimate the marine fish landing s,and to find out the types of fish stocks available. As very little work (Bal and Banerji, 1951) has been done in the past regarding the fishery resources of our country, a preliminary survey was found essential before embarking on the final programme. With this in view, the author conducted a preliminary survey in 1949 to ascertain the number of fishing villages, boats, nets and fishermen along the coastal strip extending from Cape Comorin in the south to Ponnani River in Malabar District in the north. Based on the data thus collected, the final design to estimate the landings was made. Initially five observation centres, Blangad in South Malabar, Narakkal and Malippuram in Trichur District, Wadi in Quilon District, and Vizhingam in Trivandrum District, of the erstwhile Travancore-Cochin State, were selected. Regular observations were taken at these centres in 1950. From 1951 onwards observations were restricted to two centres, Narakkal and Vizhingam, and from January 1953 to August 1954 observations were confined to Vizhingam alone. From September 1954 onwards two more centres. Cape Comorin and Wadi, were also included for the estimation of fish landings. As Vizhingam is a very important fishing centre, and as data for five consecutive years were available it was decided to embody the observations in the present paper as suggested by Dr. N. K. Panikkar, the then Chief Research Officer, Central Marine Fisheries Research Station, Mandapam Camp.Not Availabl