5. TEST FISHING

5.1 The Drottningholm method

Fish stock sampling was carried out once in Mwenje Dam to determine the fish species composition and the relative fish species abundance using the Drottningholm method. A full description of the method is given in Fjaeling and Furst (1991). A short description is found on Appendix 3. Table 1 shows the different fish species caught and their relative abundance.

The test fishing revealed that the dominant fish species were Barbus marequensis, Oreochromis mossambicus, B. paludinosus, and Micralestes acutidens. The most abundant in terms of number and weight were B. marequensis and B. paludinosus. B. marquensis is a large cyprinid. The gillnet fishery uses small mesh sizes and this fish may suffer heavy fishing pressure from the gillnet fishermen. B. paludinosus is a small cyprinid and escapes gillnet fishermen. It also escapes seine nets due to its diurnal migratory pattern (Palme and Aberg, 1993)

5.2 Test fishing using traditional fishing gear

Test fishing was tried using traditional fishing gear which included kamukore (scoop net), duwo (basket trap), chighubhu (bottle trap) and javu (throw net) (see Figure 1). An attempt was made to obtain information from local fishermen. This proved to be a difficult task. No local fisherman was prepared to furnish ALCOM with the information requested. All traditional fishing gear is regarded as illegal by the community, and its use has led to arrests. (The correct position is that basket traps and spear fishing are legal in dams but the DNPWM is concerned about their use in rivers.) Although many fishermen agreed that different traditional fishing gears are used in the reservoir none admitted to using them. After almost a year, ALCOM was able to hire local fishermen to make four common traditional fishing gears in the community and later to use them. At first the gear was used unsuccessfully without the help of the local fishermen. ALCOM then hired local fishermen for test fishing using the four traditional fishing gears. The results obtained give a rough indication of the different fish species that the fishing gears catch (See Table 5). The results were used in discussions held later on the effect of fishing gears.

Table 1
Fish composition in gillnet catches at 0–3 m depth, Mwenje Dam

Figure 1
Traditional fishing gear used in Mwenje Dam

	Chighubhu (5-litre plastic bottle trap)
Javu (Throw net).
	Duwo (Basket trap made of plastic sheets).
Kamukore (Scoop net)	Duwo (Basket trap made of reeds)