MUKAH: Thanks to technology, making fishing nets is much easier nowadays, thus enabling fishermen to own as many nets as they can afford to buy.
Gone are the days when a fisherman had to spend so much time making nets.
Inyu Juni, 62, is one of the many fishermen here who is thankful for the technology that has helped him own a few nets. He has casting and drag nets.
He said the body of the fishing net was readily available in the market now, and the price depended on the ‘eye’, width and length of the net.
The former Malaysian Civil Defence Force (APM) personnel added that the accessories needed to make a fishing net were the arih (top and base ropes), weight and buoyant.
“This is the situation now, much easier compared to the old days where the body of the fishing net and other accessories are all done by a fisherman himself, and time-consuming too,” he said today.
He said the length of the fishing net was between 300 and 500 yards, while the width ranged from eight, 12 and 18 feet for casting nets, and 24 feet for lekuong (a type of fishing net).
For anchau (drag net), the length is 50 yards and the width is eight feet. Drag net is used near the shore, at a water depth of about six feet.
According to him, the size of the ‘eye’ also varies — one and one quarter inches, one and a half inches or two inches.
If the eye was two inches, prawns such as ‘kirby’ and ‘swallow’ would also be caught, besides fish, he added.
On the price of the fishing net, he said it was between RM40 and RM50 per 300-yard long and eight feet wide, and it is “up to us to buy how many rolls we want.”
He revealed that in 2019, he made a very good catch during one outing, and the following year was good too with the casting net as well as drag net.
