Mavoor: It’s time for new gen fishing in the countryside! The fishing rods and hooks and hand nets and seine nets and baskets are all getting spruced up in tune with the changing times. Shops selling the modernised fishing gadgets are sprouting up along the river banks of villages. Even the bamboo baskets and traps used to catch fish from the small canals are coming out in new ‘editions.’
The baskets which were traditionally made with bamboo and cane are now getting manufactured using iron wires, which are moulded in a basket shape over which plastic nets are woven. The price tag starts from Rs. 750 onwards. The fishing rods have also undergone some radical transformation.
Now, there is no need to hunt for live worms to be used as bait. You can buy any number of plastic baits resembling frogs and grasshoppers that would be sure to lure the fish! The rods also come with a selection of two or three hooks.
The fishing rods have also become more flexible, with adjustable length. Even the seine nets and the ‘thandaadi’ nets that have different sized holes that would enable smaller fish, especially the young, to escape, have undergone some major cosmetic changes.
With the introduction of new gear, fishing is becoming a family pastime, with more people flocking to the river banks with their families in tow. With the ban on deep-sea trawling imposed from the onset of monsoon, the demand for river fish has also shot up.
