KARWAR: Fishermen in Uttara Kannada have been able to make a big catch compared to previous years where they netted close to 1.2 lakh tons of fish. They said their earnings, however, witnessed a slump due to several reasons, including increase in diesel price and the West Asia crisis.
This year brought in a glee on the faces of fishermen as they were able to net huge catches with the total fish production in 2025 reaching 119313.14 tons which is quite more compared to the previous year.
As this year’s fishing season came to an end, they said the catch was good because of favourable conditions. “The wind was good and there was no extreme weather. There were restrictions in deep-water fishing and the fishermen from the neighbouring states were kept at bay. This led to a good catch,” said Vinayak Harikanthra, a fisherman at Baithkol near Karwar.
The fishermen, however, are not happy as their expenditure increased. “The diesel and LPG prices increased, and the export was affected by the West Asia crisis,” said Harikanthra.
The district has 14,076 registered fishing boats, of which 1,140 are mechanised or Persian, 4,927 are motorised and 8,009 are traditional boats. According to the fishermen, the Persian boats require thousands of litres of diesel for operation.
They also need LPG and food grains for the crew.” The more we fish, the more it burns the fuel. In addition to it, the payment to the crew and the maintenance of the boat and fishing net need to be taken care of. The cost of fishing increased this year because of these reasons,” said Jagadish Banalikar, a fisherman. The district has 16,537 families fully dependent on fishing and another 29,386 people who are partly dependent on the trade.
Meanwhile, fisheries department officials attributed the decrease in fish prices to the increase in fish production everywhere. “All the catch is taken to either Malpe or Kerala. The price depends on the amount of the catch here. The increased catch at these places caused a crash in prices, said Prateek Shetty, the deputy director of the fisheries department.
