The Malayan purse seine (pukat jerut) fishery
K. Gopinath, a Senior Research Officer with the Travancore Fishery Development Scheme, published this detailed technical and ethnographic study in 1950, based on a four-month field visit to the Malay states in 1948. The paper documents the purse seine (pukat jerut) mackerel fishery of the Malayan west coast—its origins, equipment, operational methods, and economics—comparing Chinese and Malay working styles and benchmarking Malayan output against American purse seine fisheries. The overarching purpose was to assess the feasibility of introducing purse seine techniques to Indian waters.
Summary
The article traces the history of the purse seine in Malaya from the migration of Chinese fishermen from Pakhoi (South China) to Siam around 1877, and their subsequent settlement at Kuala Kedah and Pangkor. It establishes that the fishery is concentrated in only two locations on the west coast, with the nets used almost exclusively for mackerel (Scomber microlepidotus and S. kanagurta). The author describes the seasonal patterns of mackerel occurrence, the lunar timing of fishing operations (fishing only on dark nights, with the season running from six days after full moon to ten or eleven days after new moon), and the characteristics of the fishing grounds off the Perak/Lumut and Kedah/Perlis river mouths, where the seabed is muddy and depths range from 5 to 60 fathoms (pp. 75–78).
The bulk of the paper is a detailed technical description of the equipment—nets (distinguishing Chinese and Malay constructions in yarn count, float type, ring arrangement, and sinker distribution), boats (power-driven vessels of varying sizes and crew complements), and shore establishments (factories with curing tubs, boiling ovens, and drying platforms). The operational section contrasts the Chinese method of deploying the net from two sampans moving in opposite directions in a pincer-like encirclement with the Malay method of one boat remaining stationary while the other rows around the shoal. Gopinath judges the Chinese method to be more efficient, noting that the pincer movement affords little opportunity for the shoal to escape, and that the recent addition of an electric light lowered into the water at the net’s junction further improves retention (pp. 79–91).
The paper closes with a comparative analysis of Malayan and American purse seine fisheries, a description of the preservation processes (salting in circular tubs and boiling in cement ovens), marketing channels to Singapore and other Malayan towns, and a full accounting of capital outlay and wages for a typical fishing unit (pp. 91–96).
Key Findings
- In 1947, 134,580 piculs (159,804.82 cwts) of mackerel were landed at Pangkor by purse seine nets, forming 58% of Perak’s total fish catch; 38,859 piculs were landed at Kuala Kedah, over 65% from purse seine boats (p. 75).
- Pre-war annual output per head at Pangkor was approximately 10 tons, compared with 8.3 tons for Japanese bream fishermen and 1.5 tons for Malay east coast fishermen; in 1947 the figure rose to 11.8 tons per head (pp. 75, 92).
- The Malayan purse seine ranges from 140 to 180 fathoms in length and 25 to 30 fathoms in depth, with a uniform half-inch mesh throughout; the Chinese net maintains a uniform depth profile while the Malay net tapers from 25 fathoms at the centre to 16 fathoms at the wing tips (pp. 79–83).
- A typical Chinese fishing unit at Pangkor comprises a 56-foot, 50 H.P. diesel vessel with a crew of 24 men, two 25-foot flat-bottomed sampans, and a purse seine of approximately 150–180 fathoms; the Malay unit uses two 48-foot keeled rowing boats (kolek) towed astern and a crew of 27–28 men (pp. 85–89).
- The total capital outlay for establishing a complete fishing unit (factory, vessel, three sampans, net, and stores) was approximately $70,000 in 1948, roughly three to four times pre-war prices (p. 95).
- During 1947, 28 Pangkor boats with a combined net tonnage of about 700 tons and employing 672 persons landed 7,990.25 tons of mackerel, equivalent to 285.36 tons per boat or 11.41 tons per unit tonnage of vessel—substantially below American sardine seine averages of 487.8 to 2,352 tons per boat (p. 93).
Conclusion
Gopinath’s definitive takeaway is that the Malayan purse seine fishery, while producing respectable yields by local standards and demonstrating a high degree of indigenous technical sophistication—particularly in the Chinese-style net deployment and the use of electric light to retain fish—operates at a fraction of the efficiency of the fully mechanised American purse seine industry. The lower output per unit tonnage is attributed not to any inherent inferiority of the Malayan method but to the absence of mechanical hauling gear, stern turntables, and modern navigational aids such as echo-sounders. The study ultimately serves as a technical reference for the potential introduction of purse seine fishing to Indian waters.
Context
- The author was a Travancore government officer on a sanctioned research tour, not a Malayan administrator; his framing is that of an external technical observer assessing a foreign fishery for possible replication in India.
- The paper draws on the author’s direct field observations in 1948, supplemented by data from the Fisheries Department of the Federation of Malaya and Singapore (particularly the 1937 survey by the motor vessel Kembong) and American fisheries statistics from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Pacific Fishermen.