Fishing harbour, India
Mangaluru fishing harbour
Karnataka's main fishing port, landing mackerel, sardine and seer fish for the coast's famous fish curries.
Mangaluru, at the mouth of the Netravati and Gurupura rivers, is the busiest fishing harbour on the Karnataka coast. Trawlers and purse seiners land mackerel, sardine, seer fish, pomfret and ribbonfish at the old port, and the catch feeds both the region's cooking and its fish meal and oil plants. Mangalorean fish curry, tangy with kokum or tamarind and rich with coconut, is known well beyond the city.
The catch
Bangude, the Indian mackerel, and boothai, the oil sardine, are the everyday fish, fried or curried. Anjal, the seer fish, and manji, the pomfret, are the prized ones. Purse seiners bring in large shoals of sardine and mackerel after the monsoon ban, and much of the small fish goes to fish meal factories along the coast. Landings vary from year to year with the monsoon and ocean conditions.
Season and rules
Like the rest of India's west coast, Karnataka bans mechanised fishing from 1 June to 31 July. The state has also set rules against light fishing and bull trawling, in which two boats tow one net, which traditional fishers say strip the inshore waters. Disputes between purse seine operators and small-scale fishers come up often at Mangaluru and other ports along the coast.
Still to be written: Indian mackerel, Indian oil sardine, Narrow-barred Spanish mackerel, Pampus argenteus, Largehead hairtail.