Saury swarm at northern port amid poor nationwide haul

Résumé détaillé

A port in Nemuro City, which is located in the northern Japanese prefecture of Hokkaido, has been busy with fishers following the arrival of an abundance of Pacific saury.

A port in Nemuro City, which is located in the northern Japanese prefecture of Hokkaido, has been busy with fishers following the arrival of an abundance of Pacific saury.

About 30 people, including local fishers, lined up on a quay at Nemuro Port on Monday morning to enjoy saury fishing. The fish came close to the surface as soon as the fishers dropped their lines in. Sometimes multiple fish were caught at one time. One fisher caught nearly 100 saury within one hour.

A resident in her 80s said that she was surprised by the good catch. She added that she was looking forward to preparing the fish at home in various ways, such as cooking them with soy sauce and sugar, or drying them.

Generally speaking, Japan has seen extremely poor catches of Pacific saury this year. A national saury fishing association said that catches across Japan this year totaled 8,800 tons as of the end of October, down about 80 percent from the same period last year.

Honma Takayuki is a researcher at the Kushiro Fisheries Research Institute. He said the reason the Pacific saury entered the port is unclear, though he noted that a school of the fish in the Nemuro Strait may have moved to relatively warm waters along the coast, due to a drop in the offshore sea temperatures.

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