NO. 3(1917' 



TUTICORIN FISHING INDUSTRY 



17 



During the two special seasons for offshore lining the number 

 of boats employed rises to l8 ; when the weather is adverse, as 

 during the height of the south-west and north-east monsoons, a 

 number of the lining fishermen resort to other methods of fishing 

 or take up lighterage work, but there are seldom less than five 

 canoes employed even in the height of the monsoon. It has to be 

 remembered that in July for example, when the south-west monsoon 



\'\v,. 5. — Cheri (Sciaena miles). x \. 



is at its height, wind and sea are not continuously violent as text- 

 books would have us believe. There are many interludes of 

 comparatively quiet weather and of these the line fishermen take 

 ample opportunity. Their craft are excellent sea-boats not to be 

 compared for a moment with the dug-out canoes and crank slab- 

 sided punt-like fishing boats of the Malabar coast. They are 

 really boats and not canoes ; their crews are expert sailors in the 

 true sense of the word and despise the slaves of the oar. Their 

 boats are of the same type as those of the valai drift-netters but of 

 slightly smaller size. They run to about 28 feet overall, with a 

 beam of 4 feet and depth of 3 to 3/^ feet. Each crew consists of 

 from five to eight men according to the size of the boat. 



Inshore Lining. — A second important group of line fishermen 

 concern themselves with inshore fishing for a smaller class of 

 fish than those that frequent the rocky pearl bank areas. These 

 men number about 40 and work 13 small boats manned each by two 

 to three men. The boats are the smallest of those engaged in the 

 Tuticorin fisheries, but except in size are similar to the larger ones 

 already described. They range between 14 and 16 feet in length, 

 with an extreme breadth at the gunwale of 3 to 3^ feet, depth 2 



