Traditional blessing opens lampuki season

Peter Murray

Aug 11th 2012, 09:14

They will have a problem landing their catches there -i.e.in finding room between all the tables,chairs and unbrellas of the restaurants commandeering virtually the whole seafront area.

Michael Albanozzo

Aug 11th 2012, 07:43

Stone slabs are used to anchor the floats and palm fronds (kannizzati) around which the fish gather. The fishers then move from float to float trying to catch the fish using a surrounding net. Not as easy as you make it sound.

Alex Ellul

Aug 11th 2012, 05:37

we had a very lean lampuki season last year. Rumours abounded that lampuki catches were being sold on the high seas.

Mr Adrian Zahra

Aug 11th 2012, 02:59

Lampuki do not get trapped in kanizzati nets. kanizzatin or fronds of palm tree are tied to floats or "cimi" in Maltese. Most Migratory pelagic fish have the Habit to aggregate under such structures. Fishermen will probe cimi one by one to investigate for the presence of lampuki and the like and wherever lampuki are found they will encircle them with their nets "tiddawwar ic cima" which in itself is an art. Minor errors or mistiming in the encirclement of the schoal of fish simply means that the schoal will move to deeper water and no haul and a lot hardwork gone.

pity that no one has ever documented this. it is a spectacle by itself watching the gold and turqoise colours of the "DORADO" (made of gold) as they call her in the carribean.