BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - The Caribs named St. Kitts ‘Liamuiga’ which means ‘fertile land’ but could they have meant ‘fertile waters’ as well, for we are seeing with increasing frequency some really giant fish pulled by fishermen from our waters.
Take for instance the bumper catches brought to shore by the Spencer Brothers recently – a 400 lb swordfish, the tiger shark weighing about a thousand pounds and a marlin – 11 feet long and weighing a whopping 420 pounds. Then there was Todville’s swordfish weighing about 250 lbs.
These were all very edible and tasty fish as patrons at Sprat Net and Marshalls and a few other restaurants were able to confirm.
But the fishermen of Nevis, much to their consternation, found that for some of the fish of our adjacent waters, the fishermen could be edible as well. They brought in a giant hammerhead shark!
Nevispages.com related the experience of the fisherman, Earl David, in his own words...
“During our regular fishing trip on September 15, 2012 at about 9.30 a.m. after casting the fishing net into the water at Oualie Beach about 40 – 50 ft from shore, one of the divers encountered a shark in the net. He returned into the boat and informed us that a shark is in the net and it is twice the size of him and he is not going back into the water. The shark then surfaced to the top of the water and we realize that it was a Hammer Head shark. It was more exciting than frightening because I heard of Hammer Head sharks before but had never seen one.”
The shark was 10 feet 8 inches long and it took about six men to help pull him in.
Said David, “It put up a fight with a series of dangerous lashes with its head and tail for about 25 minutes. Finally we got it into the boat and under control and we watched in amazement at what a big and dangerous creature we had captured.”
It was also noted that an even bigger shark was recently caught at Indian Castle beach and that it was caught even closer—10 to 15 feet out from the shore.
Further evidence of just how fertile our waters are came at the conclusion of Nevis’ 18th annual Sports Fishing tournament at Oualie Beach on the evening of Saturday 20th October.
Though there were no bumper size fishes rivalling those of the Spencers, yet within two days the 19 fishing vessels with their 83 anglers were able to bring in a total of 1,004.4 pounds of qualifying fish.
There were wahoos (largest 50.58 lbs), mahi-mahi (largest 60.8 lbs), tunas (largest 13.2 lbs) and king fish (largest 34.2 lbs).
And as these fish-hunters set out on their water-scape to capture these ‘wild’ fish, one could reminisce that this is what was done in years gone by as hunters roamed the land-scape in search of wild animals and birds for food.
Since then the land-hunters have learnt to ‘domesticate’ these wild animals keeping them available on their farmlands and ranches.
Dr. Barrington Browne of Conaree has shown us that we can successfully domesticate our fish and develop fish farms and we can’t help wondering why more of these aren’t developed to help vary our chicken-laced diet and reduce our bloated food bill.
As fertile as our waters are, fishermen must always be wary of going beyond our borders and crossing the water borders of neighbouring islands to chase fish that have no such considerations!
Many a fisherman has had his boat held or have been imprisoned by supposedly friendly countries who also compete for the same fish.
Developing fish farms seem to be a feasible direction to take if we are serious about food security, but we must hurry for even though it is said ‘our fertile soil cannot spoil’ it is also true to say ‘land will not be always in our hand’.
