gambia boat fishing

When I was there in Oct 2008 the local fishermen took 3,500 Jacks in their nets in one week. I witnessed it myself. There were lots of other fish in the nets.


Here we blame the super trawlers for the decline of all of fish. They do have an effect on certain species. However, our own inshore fishermen almost fished the bass population out. They fished our salmon stocks to virtual extinction.

I would be inclined to think that it is a combination of trawlers and local fishermen wiping out the stocks in Gambia

The Locals do get big catches from time to time, but his has been on a serious decline. I was there in 99 and these catches were more common than now. The general shore fishing has been on a steady decline since the local goverments of Senegal and Gambia signed away their fishing rights for some EU cash.

I'm not an expert on the matter, but I'll shout agains't the supertrawlers all the time. When you remove such a large amount of Biomass from any ecosystem, there is little hope of a recovery.

Just my 2c

Kev

I have to agree, ive done 9/10 trips over and since the early days there has deff been a big decline in catches from the shore more so than the boats, in my early years i was getting 100lb plus catches nearly each session! (some of which could be made up of 1 or 2 fish!!) but mainly a mix of captains, jacks, cudas, talipia, snapper, guitars, grouper, ladyfish, cassava, butterfish,,,etc but on my last trip 08 i struggled for 200lb for the whole holiday.

From what i know the main prob was in 2001/02 the Japaneese (factory ships) made a deal with the Gambian gov to build 2 new roads (new road1 or M1 and new road2 M2) and also some cash was donated for building new schools/hospitals and a new fleet of fishing boats for Tangee in return for the fishing rights to the Gambian waters which they litteraly emptied of everything that swam!! which in turn put the price of fish out of reach for the locals which led to major unrest and therefore the gov tried to buy back the rights but to no avail and had to sit by and watch these massive ships rape their seas for the rest of the duration of the deal, once the time span ran out the gov (President Jemma) told his people there would never be another deal done, but as usuall it was too late and to this day the waters are no whare near recovering.

Best crack over there was popping for jacks, like sticks of dynamite on the hook, i landed some over 20lb from rocky marks that have never been the same since.
My thinks Guinnea Bissua or Siarra Leone for my next trip, still great sport to be had there....

Excellent Info there Paddy...thanks.

Real pitty that these African countries are getting exploited in this way. Kinda similar to what happened to Ireland in the 70's

Feckers