The Artisanal Yellowfin Tuna Fishery In The Philippines Is Conducted At Night-time, In The Vicinity Of Payaos Artisanal FADs Editorial Image

Payaos are artisanally-crafted floating aggregating devices FADs used in the artisanal handline fishery for yellowfin tuna Thunnus albacares in the Philippines. Traditionally they were made of bamboo, but nowadays they`re composed by a variety of materials. They are generally anchored as opposed to drifting FADs. They are deemed to be relatively more sustainable than drifting FADs used by industrial fisheries. But even fishing effort by artisanal fleets can cause overfishing if it is not capped. Artisanal handline fishermen in the Philippines have developed a particular technique to target and catch tuna -specially yellowfin tuna, Thunnus albacares. They fish mostly at night, when the tuna schools swim at a certain depth. They deploy hook lines tied to stones selected by its weight to drop to the adequate depth at which the tuna are found. To attract the fish, they tie a squid to the stone, and punch a small squid ink bag so that the tuna smell the ink, swim after it, and bite the hook.