Small Fishing Boat Nets 100 Tonnes Of Fish

Story By: John FengSub-EditorJoseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

AsiaWire

This is the moment the stunned crew of a small fishing boat unexpectedly make the biggest catch of their life when they cast a net bigger than a football pitch and caught 100 tonnes of small fish in one go.

The crew from Daishan County, which is in China’s eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, spent the entire day hauling the catch onboard but in the end had to discard 20 percent of it, skipper Wei Qiyong said.

Mr Wei Qiyong, who captains Zhejiang Daishan Fishing Vessel 03178, told local media that his crew’s surprisingly big catch meant they spent four times less time at sea than usual.

Having left Dinghai West Fishing Port on 5th March, Mr Wei and his men returned from their trip in just four days, despite each journey lasting on average two weeks.

This is thanks to the 100 tonnes of croakers they managed to catch in their fishing net, which measures larger than a football pitch at 200 by 80 metres (655 by 260 feett).

A standard football pitch does not exceed 120 by 90 metres, which translates to 130 by 100 yards.

AsiaWire

Mr Wei, 43, said: “When we made the catch, I estimated it to be about 100 tonnes. It took the entire day just to bring the fish onto the boat.

“There were so many fish, our little boat couldn’t handle it.

“We managed about 4,000 boxes, each 20 kilogrammes (44 lbs), so about 80 tonnes in total.

“The remaining 20 tonnes we released back into the ocean.”

Videos taken by Mr Wei’s crew in the East China Sea show the large shoal of fish covering an area almost as large as the their boat itself, with the majority of fish still under the water’s surface.

The skipper said he began working on fishing boats at the age of 19 and has captained his own vessel for 12 years.

Despite the very large catch, which he said was the biggest of his career, Mr Wei and his crew are to make just 96,000 RMB (11,000 GBP) from the fish due to a slump in price and demand.

The croakers will go for just 1.2 RMB (14 p) per kilogramme (30 p per lb), Mr Wei said, adding that it was a 50 percent drop from the same time last year.

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