Although the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

has limited resources in terms of developing a large-scale

fishing industry The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products. It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization as including ...

, the value of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

and sea products as a source of food has long been recognized. All Caribbean territories therefore have fishing industries. Most Caribbean fishermen ply their trade from small

boat A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats. Small boats are typically found on inl ...

s (4–11 meters). These small craft, often without protection from sun or rain, are forced to remain very close to shore, seldom going more than 16 kilometers offshore.

Methods

Several methods for catching fish are used: # Fillet (gill) nets #

Trawling Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different spec ...

# Line fishing #

Seining Seine fishing (or seine-haul fishing; ) is a method of fishing that employs a surrounding net, called a seine, that hangs vertically in the water with its bottom edge held down by weights and its top edge buoyed by floats. Seine nets can be de ...

# Fish pots and reels. The method of

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

depends on the type and size of the fish to be caught. Trawling is used to catch shrimp, carite, snapper and cavali. The main catches from seine and

gill net Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is ...

s are king fish,

shark Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachi ...

and carite. Fish pot catches are

red snapper Red snapper is a common name of several fish species. It may refer to: * Several species from the genus ''Lutjanus'': ** ''Lutjanus campechanus'', Northern red snapper, commonly referred to as red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlanti ...

s and

jack Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, ...

s. Fishing is a year-round activity in the Caribbean and it directly employs thousands of people.

Sales and marketing

A number of different methods of selling are used in the Caribbean. Most small-scale fishermen take some of the catch for their families and sell the rest at the beach. If there is a delay between catching the fish and eating it, then some form of processing has to take place. The three processing methods that are common in the Caribbean are: * Salting: The fish is washed, gutted, salted, then dried in the sun, or in a special electrical drying unit. Among fish salted are salt are

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus ''Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Oncorhy ...

, shark,

grouper Groupers are fish of any of a number of genera in the subfamily Epinephelinae of the family Serranidae, in the order Perciformes. Not all serranids are called "groupers"; the family also includes the sea basses. The common name "grouper" is ...

and carite. * Smoking: The fish is washed, gutted. a little

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...

is added, then it is partly cooked over a smoking fire. Herrings and jacks are normally preserved by this method. * Fresh fish: The fish is washed, and passed through a machine which coats it with a film of

ice Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaqu ...

. It is then wrapped in

foil Foil may refer to: Materials * Foil (metal), a quite thin sheet of metal, usually manufactured with a rolling mill machine * Metal leaf, a very thin sheet of decorative metal * Aluminium foil, a type of wrapping for food * Tin foil, metal foil ...

References

{{Caribbean topics Caribbean Economy of the Caribbean