Stilt Fishing

Stilt fishing is rod-and-line fishing carried out from a pole planted in the reef. A detailed account is a paper by M.T.K. Nagodawithana of Sri Lanka's Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, presented at a Sri Lanka/FAO workshop in Colombo in October 1994 and published by the Bay of Bengal Programme in 1996.

The paper describes the stilt closely. A pole 3 to 4 m long is driven about 0.5 to 1 m into the coral reef, a job for two or three people. Sticks tied to the pole at a height of about 2 m form a triangular frame that supports a cross bar called the petta, on which the fisherman sits. He holds the stilt with one hand and fishes with the other. Two or more stilts are sometimes joined to form a fence, or wata, so that several men can fish at the same time.

The paper calls stilt fishing special to Galle District. It is mainly confined to Kathaluwa and Ahangama, two villages in the Habaraduwa division. Each fishing reef is used only by fishermen from a particular village or group of villages. The reefs listed are worked by men from Koggala, Kathaluwa, Ahangama, Goiyapana and other villages, and two of the places named, Midigama and Denuwala, lie in the adjacent Matara District.

The practice was once carried out at Unawatuna as well. By the time of the paper very little fishing was done there, because the growth of tourism and bathers disturbed the fish shoals. Sri Lanka Tourism tells visitors that stilt fishing may be seen at Koggala beach. The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority describes Weligama, a fishing town in Matara District, as known for its stilt fishermen.

Accounts of its age differ. Sri Lanka Tourism refers to stilt fishing as an ancient practice. The fisheries paper is more cautious. "The history of stilt fishing is not clear," it says, and it reports what elderly fishermen of the area told the author: that the method started about 50 years earlier, after the Second World War.

Before that, the fishermen said, men fished from rocks that stood above the sea. There were not enough rocks for everyone, so some planted discarded iron poles or pipes in the reef. Iron was scarce, and a few fishermen began to plant pointed timber poles in holes made with a crowbar. The timber proved more durable, and others followed. The woods used were domba, kaduru and kadol, with alstonia the usual choice by the time of the paper. Fishing at these reefs was already regulated earlier: the Talpe Pattu Fishing Rules of 1912 restricted nets at certain fishing centres.

The rod is the seasoned midrib of the kithul palm, thin, light and about 1.5 m long. The line is about half a metre longer and is now made of nylon. Before synthetic line was available, fishermen used fibre from pineapple leaves. The hooks are barbless and are made by the fishermen themselves from stainless steel wire weighted with lead. No bait is used. The hook is held above the fish and jerked to attract them.

The main catch is koraburuwa, a spotted herring, with its young, called ahalaburuwa, and small mackerel known as bolla. The fishing period begins with the onset of the south-west monsoon in April or May and lasts until the monsoon ends in September or October. Fishermen usually go out three times a day: in the early morning, in the late morning and from mid-afternoon until dusk. The catch goes into a bag tied at the waist, which in earlier days was woven from coconut leaves.

The stilt fishermen manage the fishery themselves. The paper lists what they prohibit: fishing with any kind of net, the use of foul hooks, the use of any craft, bathing in the area when fish are present, and planting stilts in the daytime. Anyone may use a vacant stilt. Reef areas were shared out between groups after disputes over fishing rights. A commission report of 1973 on a dispute at Koggala allocated areas and numbers of stilts to two groups from that village.

The author identified threats that the fishermen could not manage without government help. Outsiders were setting small-mesh nets across the path of the fish, and hotels were being built close to the stilt fishing areas. The paper also observed that stilt fishing had become a tourist attraction, and that some men earned a living by posing for photographs.