This year I happened to be in my village for personal work when fishing at Pendur lake was announced. I was thrilled to hear that. It was on 11th May. The night before we made two new fish nets in round shape. The slang for that is "aakya". Next day morning we all went to the lake. So many people actually participated in this event. The water was not really clean. It was only muddy. The fishing started after the "Gaokar" gave the green signal i.e. after the "garanha". Hundreds of people jumped into the lake with all the different shapes and sizes of fish nets. Everybody was getting excited after catching the fish. Most of us were getting only small fishes (modaka). Some of them caught small tortoise. The villagers were very excited to catch tortoise. I wonder why? If the tortoise has 21 nails in total it will sell for couple of lakhs!!! Is it not illegal?
The whole experience was superb. First time I realized how difficult it is to catch even a finger length fish. Some of them pass through the net, some jump out of it, some has scary thorns and some are so slippery. Well in the end, we got about a kilo of them and became part of our nice lunch.
Dinesh,
ReplyDeleteAre those fish on the ground just discarded? I hope not. Is this fishing an annual event? Its great to see people enjoying their local resource.
We often forget that its not unlimited. If we catch smaller fish, they need to be released back to the water and only adult fish need to be cought. The locals have to responsibly manage their lake and resources within.
Thanks for putting up the photos. If you happen to know some local leaders, you might want to make them aware of this. This way the Pendur/Katta people can enjoy it now and also their children and grandchildren.
No, the fish on the ground were not discarded. In fact we made tasty chatney of it!!
ReplyDeleteYou got a valid point there, I never thought of it. This event has become so popular that this lake is attacked by thousands of people and I wonder if any fish is left after the event!
I am thinking seriously on your advise.
Keep up the good work :D
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