Pacific Saury Catch In Hokkaido Very Small
The season's first Pacific saury catch has arrived at a port in Hokkaido, northern Japan. But the volume was only about 1 percent of that for same time last year.
Four of 12 boats that set sail from the port in the town of Akkeshi on August 15 returned with the catch on Sunday. The remaining eight did not catch anything.
The catch weighed just 600 kilograms, about 1 percent of last year's load.
A local fisheries cooperative says the size of the fish was also smaller than last year. They measured about 25 centimeters in length on average, and weighed around 110 grams each.
The saury season started on August 10. Smaller boats that sailed out earlier didn't bring back anything.
The port's saury haul has been poor in recent years. This season it is expected to be even smaller than last year's all-time low.
