Sc.

Annals of DDI Tulcea, Romania

vol. 15 2009

16.
STOICA Georgeta
Traditional fishing tools

Università degli Studi di Perugia, Dipartimento Uomo & Territorio, Sezione Antropologica, Via dell’Aquilone, 7, 06123
Perugia, Italia; e-mail: stoicageorgiana@yahoo.com

BSTRACT. In this paper I present the traditional fishing tools used in the area of the Danube Delta. More

A
precisely, I speak about the village of Sfantu Gheorghe, a traditional fishing village, where the fishing activity
has been the main activity along the years and where, lately, there have been major changes due to the
decrease of the fish species.

KEY WORDS: fishing tools, fishing methods, Sfantu Gheorghe, fishery management, fishermen knowledge

INTRODUCTION

In September 1990, the Romanian Government declared the entire Danube Delta and some adjacent
areas as Biosphere Reserve (DDBR). As we know, the biosphere reserves design those protected areas
whose purpose is the conservation and protection of natural habitat areas, as well as of the specific
biological diversity. We may say that the motto of a biosphere reserve is that of reconciling the
conservation of biodiversity with economic development. Since ancient times, in the Danube Delta, fishery
has been the main traditional activity, having an important role in the local economy. The fishing
techniques employed by the fishermen in the area of Danube Delta, present a great variety according to
the types of fish and also to the fishermen’s knowledge. What most interest us here is to present the actual
fishing tools used in the area. It is also important to mention the ancient fishing practices used once by the
old fishermen, nowadays left aside, because of the introduction of new fishing techniques or because they
are prohibited. Of great importance for our study is the Grigore Antipa’s book “Pescaria si pescuitul in
Romania”, a milestone in the study of fishing tools and techniques.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The ethnographic research for this study took place in the village of Sfantu Gheorghe, where I lived for a
period of nine months during the years 2007 and 2008, covering the four seasons of the year. This thing
gave me the possibility to observe the fishermen activities in accordance with the alternation of the
seasons and also offered me the chance to see and understand the fishing techniques used while I went
fishing with the fishermen. The methods used for the data-gathering were those of participant observation
and semi-structured interviews with the fishermen and local inhabitants.

Sfantu Gheorghe is an isolated village, reachable only by water and situated on the homonymous branch
at the meeting point of the Danube with the Black Sea. It is a traditional fishermen village inhabited by
Ukrainians (haholi) also called kismane (sturgeon intestine eaters) due to the fact that the village used to
be until 2006 the most important centre for the sturgeon fishing. Beginning with 2006, due to the decrease
of the sturgeon species, the sturgeon fishing was banished for a period of 10 years. Also of great
importance for the economy of the village is the pontic shad fishing, the fishing on channels and on the
lakes, the last one considered in minor measure, due to the fact that lakes like Puiu, Rosu, Rosulet are far
away from the village.

In order to understand the actual fishing situation, we consider necessary to say a few words about the
fishery management in time. According to Mircea Staras [1] “the fishery management systems have been
determined by the political circumstances and can be divided into different periods.

• Before the Second World War the fisheries were administrated by the State, according to a
fishery law dating from 1896. The State role was to supervise all the key sections. Fishing rights
were individually issued, and the catches were sold by auction.

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• During the communist period, the State had the total control of the fisheries through state
companies, which owned the fishing rights, the tools and the trading monopoly. The fishermen
were employees of the State companies.

• In the period 1990 - 1997 a mixed, interfering system was applied. This caused conflicts between
state companies which wanted to maintain their monopoly, the privatization trends and the
establishment of the Biosphere Reserve.”

From 1998 individual fishing licenses were issued and the fishermen organized in fishermen’s
associations. In the village of Sfantu Gheorghe, for instance there are two fishermen organizations one
called Ivan Pescarul and the other one called Black Sea Sturgeon. Nowadays, the fishing tools and the
boats are not anymore property of the state but of the fishermen, which had to organize themselves and
buy all the necessary equipment. As I.P., a fisherman from Sfantu Gheorghe told: It is not easy to be a
fisherman here. You have to buy everything and it is not cheap at all. And, if it happens that our nets get
damaged, we have to spend a lot of money to replace them.

The individual fishing licenses that give the fishermen the right to go fishing were issued in the first period
by the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve Authority and in the last years by ANPA, The National Agency for
Fishing and Aquaculture. Of particular interest for our study are the words written on the interior folder of
the permit released by both of the agencies (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2.):
This permit gives you the right of professing a traditional activity: fishing.
Do Protect the fishing resource so that this tradition persists.

On the fishing licences are also indicated the fishing areas and the authorized fishing tools and their
number as we may see in Fig. 3. The fishing areas for the Sfantu Gheorghe are the lakes “Rosu-Puiu”, the
Black Sea area of Casla Vadanei, Perisor, excluded the DDBR and the Sfantu Gheorghe branch from km
44 to km 0, while the authorized fishing tools (we use in the text the local names of the fishing tools) for the
lake areas are the taliene, vintire, setci and ave; for the marine areas the setci, and for the Danube and its
branches the setci, pripoane, vintire. Also we may find written on the fishing license the regulation of the
meshes of the fishing nets. For the ave/setci there are 40 mm, for the setci used for the pontic shad fishing
there are 30 mm and for the vintire 32 mm. We may speak here, referring to the village of Sfantu
Gheorghe, of three main fishery categories according to fish species, methods and fishing areas. More
precisely, we refer here to fresh-water fish (on the channels and on the Danube river), migratory fish
(pontic shad and sturgeon) and marine fish. Fishing methods can be divided into active fishing and passive
fishing. For the active fishing the tools used are the setca and the ava while for the passive fishing there
are various fishing tools such as taliene, vintire, pripoane, ave, carmace.

Fishing tools are classified according to the fishing method in:

Tools that capture the fish through hanging (setci, ave)

Tools used as traps (vintire, taliene)

Tools provided with hooks (pripoane, drigola, carmace)

Tools that capture the fish through hanging

Concerning the first category of tools that capture the fish through hanging we may speak here of setci
used for the Pontic shad fishing and ave used to capture fishes like carp, grey mullet, pike, crucian, red
eye, loach and sheat fish. (Fig. 4, Fig. 5 and Fig. 6).

In the village of Sfantu Gheorghe, the Pontic shad fishing season is an important moment of the year from
the point of view of the economic gain. In this part of the Danube Delta, the natural conditions for the
Pontic shad fishing are better than other places from the Danube and the fact that ships do not sail on the
sea and on the river facilitate the Pontic shad migration. In the years when there is a good Pontic shad
migration, a fishermen may earn up to 700 lei by day. Generally, the Pontic shad fishing season begins in
the month of March, but this year, maybe because of the global warming – as some fishermen told me – it
began one month before. The Pontic shad fishing is allowed until the month of June with a stop week
during the reproduction period.

For the fishermen from the village of Sfantu Gheorghe, the year 2008 was a very good year for the Pontic
shad fishing, an year that for sure “will enter into the history. We had a lot of Pontic shad this year and the
price of eight lei is very good. We fishermen, had never seen such a good price. One kilo of Pontic shad
has the same price of a kilo of grey mullet.” (C.F., fisherman from Sfantu Gheorghe). On the contrary,

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during the past years the Pontic shad migration was feeble and the fishermen with the earned money were
not able to pay not even the fishing taxes.

For the Pontic shad fishing there are two fishermen in every boat that are going fishing generally during
the night (Fig. 7). The fishing tool (setca) is set along the Danube and follows the river currents. One side
of the setca is tied to an object (usually a plastic bottle or a plastic can) that serves as a sign (in Ukrainian
called cubisca) and the other side is tied to the boat. The fishermen are rowing hardly so that they maintain
the transversal position on the Danube and also to avoid that the other side of the setca don’t go ahead
pushed by the river current which is stronger in the middle.

When the fishermen are about to throw the setca into the water, they get with the boat right in the middle
of the Danube (Fig. 13). One of the fishermen stand still while throwing into the water the cubisca and the
rest of the fishing net (Fig. 8) while the other one is rowing towards the river side. When the setca was set
into the water, the two fishermen row together (Fig. 9) in order to pull the “toana” down the river for a few
kilometres. After that, one of the fishermen take out of the water the setca (Fig. 10) and they remove from
the meshes the Pontic shad (Fig. 11 and Fig. 12). At the end, the setca is rearranged and cleaned in order
to go fishing again. Toana means as fishermen say to float. “You float for one time. You throw the setca
and you follow the current until when you take it out that is a toana.”

The working conditions are very hard and the fishermen have to face the weather hard conditions. “We
work with nature”. says one fishermen. The other night, the wind direction changed five times. It’s like that
our work: a hard one!” (D.M., fishermen from Sfantu Gheorghe)

For the Pontic shad fishing, in the village of Sfantu Gheorghe there are two fishing points situated in the
vicinity of the village. One is at the meeting point of the Danube with the Black Sea at kilometre zero and
the other is at the kilometre eight of the river. There is a third fishing point, at the place called Ciotica, far
away from the village, on the sea, where the fishermen go only at the beginning of the Pontic shad season
migration. In the month of February at Ciotica appear the first Pontic shads who stay for a time waiting for
the river water to get warmer so that they can enter into the river. Here the fishermen employ a passive
fishing method using the same fishing tool setca but also a fishing tool called holiti, formed out of a single
net. They put into the water the fishing tools and after one day they check if there is some fish caught
inside.

More nets used for the Pontic shad fishing put altogether form a plauca. Usually when the men go fishing
they say that they are going na plaucu. The fishing nets number may vary according to the place where
the fishing activity is performed. “At km 0 – says I.C. – we fish with seven setci. In the sea you may put
even fourteen or fifteen setci because there is more place and at km 8 you put ten setci.”

In order to understand better how this fishing tool is realized we describe it here. The setca is composed
out of three nets put together. The middle net is realized of a very thin thread and is very thick while the
other two lateral nets have very big meshes. The net with small meshes is called ceastica and the nets
with big meshes are called sirec or porij. On the upper side of the net there is a rope with bobbers and on
the inferior part of the net there is a rope with weights (leads). (Fig. 4)The fishermen put also some stones
on the inferior part of the setca in order to keep it flat into the water. When the water gets warm and the
Pontic shad migrates at the surface, plastic bottles are attached to the upper part of the net to higher it up
and the stones number is decreased.

C.I., a fishermen from Sf. Gheorghe explain how the Pontic shad get caught: “The fish gets caught in the
middle net and when it tries to get away enter into the sirec, into the big meshes and it hangs even worser
and can’t escape”

Usually the fishing tools used for the Pontic shad fishing are being bought at Galati or Tulcea already
done. The price of one setca is of 600 RON. In order to earn some money, some fishermen prefer to buy
parts of the fishing nets called cosaci and ask the old fishermen from the village to put them together by
doing the posadeala. Once the material used was the cotton but now it has been replaced by the nylon.
There are also in the village some women who help at doing the fishing nets or at mending them.
Unfortunately, there are few young fishermen who know how to do the fishing nets. Generally they prefer
to go to another one and pay in order to get the fishing tools manufactured or repaired.

The other type of tools that capture the fish through hanging are the ave (Fig. 14). These nets have the
same structure as the setca, only that the meshes are bigger and the net is shorter. They are used for the
active fishing on the Danube to catch fishes like bream, rapacious carp, pike perch, carp, sheat fish and

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also are used for passive fishing on the sea and along the Danube Delta channels of fish species such as
grey mullet, pike perch, carp (Fig. 15 and Fig. 16).

Tools used as traps

The vintir is a passive fishing tool used as a trap. It is a long sack-shaped net, one side pointed, stretched
on five circles. The so called tool’s mouth is narrowed and turned inside, so that the fish once entered can’t
get out. The vintir is composed of three parts: the sack which captures the fish, the “wing” which cheats the
fish guiding it into the sack and the two stakes that fix the fishing tool into the water. The sack is stretched
on five wood circles whose diameters decrease beginning with the first circle.

Lately, the wood circles have been replaced with pexal tubes (Fig. 17) half-filled with sand in order to stay
still into the water. The vintir is a selective fishing tool, that means that the under size fishes can be
released into the water. With the vintir can be caught many fish species such as carp, crucian, red eye,
sheat fish.

This fishing tool it is not an expensive one and in Sfantu Gheorghe we often see persons who construct
them. It is also used by the old persons from the village (Fig. 18) because it is very easy to install and to
manage. We have to say that there are persons, the so called vintirigii, who place into the water even one
hundred pieces. D.C. says “Now I fish with the vintire on the Danube. Sometimes I catch 80-100 kilos of
fish but sometimes I catch nothing. Not even a fish to take at home.”

The Talian, another tool used as a trap, is a very big net, whose margins are tight on a cable of wires that
unite the poles who form the talian’s structure (Fig. 19). The talian is composed of five elements: the trap,
the antechamber, the shore wall, the sea wall and the flotor or the wing.

The most important part of the talian is the part where the fish is caught, called the trap or tolba. Presently,
at Sfantu Gheorghe there are no talians on the sea. Being a very expensive fishing tool, and due to the
fact that there is “a bad organization, and there is no one to occupy with” - as fishermen say - in the last
years no one invested money in it. The last one was used until 2005, and now in the village we can see
only the remaining poles. This fishing tool was used for the Pontic shad fishing but also for the small fishes
capture.

Tools provided with hooks

For the tools provided with hooks we present first of all those used to catch the sheat fish: pripoane and
drigola.

The pripoane (Fig. 20) are represented by a string where there are placed sharpened hooks on which the
fishermen put live bait such as hags, worms, mole crickets. Being a protected fish the hag (Fig. 21) is not
used anymore even if during the last years we met in the village some persons who used it.

The drigola (Fig. 22), the pripoanes’s brother - as one fishermen said to me - consists in a single hook,
also very well sharpened, tied on a long rope attached to a stake that is fixed on the ground. Even in this
case, it is used an live bait a crucian and the fishing tool is installed at night and the other day in the
morning the fishermen check it to see if there are any fishes. I met fishermen who used to place on the
Danube, up to twenty drigole, at kilometer 19-20. At times, it happened that the fishermen found sheat fish
of 20 kilos or more or it happened to find nothing and they released the fish used as bite into the water.

As mentioned in the introduction, Sfantu Gheorghe has been until 2006 the most important centre for the
sturgeon fishing. Now in the village, hardly one can see the traditional tools used to catch the sturgeon: the
carmace or the traditional chair (scameica) used to sharpen the hooks. During my stay in the village I
spoke with the old fishermen in order to find out something about the way in which they fished the
sturgeons. It was quite difficult to understand the fishing technique, without seeing it into practice, as the
sturgeon fishing with the carmace it is not a simple operation. As I could understand from their stories, the
use of carmace requires very good knowledge of the sturgeons life, of the migration periods, of the places
where the hooks are to be placed and also of the methods of placing the carmace.

At Sfantu Gheorghe there are five places where the hooks are being placed: one is Moreana „na
moreanie” (after the name of the wind that blows from the south), Jolop, placed at the meeting point of the
Danube with the sea, where the water is low, Cut, which means „back”, place situated at Ciotica, and

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Vostok „na vostosnumu” (after the wind’s name that blows from the North), situated between Sulina and
Sfantu Gheorghe, and the place called Banok, situated at the place called Milea, where the sturgeon was
deposing the fisheggs. As we may see, from the names given to these fishing places, winds have a great
importance in the sturgeon fishing and there is also a saying „Sufla moreana aduce icrana” - which means
- when the south wind blows it will bring a female sturgeon.

Since ancient times, the fishermen from Sfantu Gheorghe used the hooks called carmace (Fig. 24) and
only lately for the sturgeon fishing was introduced a fishing net called ohane.

The carmace are rows of big iron hooks put into the water in order to float at different dephts. No bite is
being used. The hooks are very well sharpened and the fish that passes by get hanged and the hook
enters into the fish body.

On a carmace rope there are 25 hooks who form what is called in local terms a perimet. Both sides of the
rope end with a curl so that it can be attached to other perimetes in order to form longer lines. The
fishermen work a lot at preparing the carmace and this implies a lot of patience. The hooks need to be
very well sharpened (Fig. 23) and are covered with a special substance in order to avoid that the salted
water rust them. Before going to the sea, the fishermen check if they have all the necessary thing into the
boat and only after that they put the carmace into the water.

D.V., a fisherman from Sfantu Gheorghe says: „You have to know to put the fishing tools into the water.
We need to have all the tools already prepared. First of all we measure on the shore. If we have 10 meter
of rope we put only 8 meters. Every one meter and a half or every four perimete, we have to make a belly
(a face burta) to the net, so that the sturgeon gets in. The rope doesn’t have to be strecthed. (...) The fish
passes through „two waters”. In summer time, when the water is warm, we put hooks up and down. The
upper hooks are provided with leads. On the contrary, in winter time we put the hooks only on the inferior
part of the rope and we put even some stones.”

Forbidden tools

We may speak also of tools who were used in the village of Sfantu Gheorghe and that now are forbidden
by law. We remember here the prostovol, a round shaped net with lead on the margins and with an iron
ring in the centre through which pass long threads connected to the nets margins. It is a tool very difficult
to manage that requires a great ability. Also another forbidden tool is the trandadai used to catch the fish
that hides in the hollows of the Danube.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

In the village of Sfantu Gheorghe, during the communist period and even for a few years after the
Revolution, fishermen were divided into working brigades such as carmagii (carmasneke), taliangii
(talianciki), vintirigii (vinchiorcichi) and they were working only with the fishing tools that were distributed to
them. Tools like setci were used by all fishermen and this, only during the Pontic shad season. As a
consequence, we may speak of a specialization of the fishermen according to the fishing tools that they
used.

As we may see from the description of the fishing tools and techniques, it is obvious that there is a strong
relationship between the fishermen and the nature. First of all they had to know the nature very well so that
they can dominate it and use its resources for their life necessities. Also the fishermen of the village have
always been aware of the sustainable use of the natural resources.

The situation of our village is more complicated than that of other villages in the Danube Delta. We can
practice no other activity than fishing and we have to take care of our natural resources. (A.P., fisherman
Sfantu Gheorghe).

The law should be applied. I would be happy if someone comes to my boat and fires me. If they find illegal
fishing tools in my boat they should fire me. The same if they find under size fish. The law should be
applied. (N.T., fisherman Sfantu Gheorghe).

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CONCLUSIONS

The fishermen had to acquire knowledge not only about the fishing tools that they used but also of the fish
species and of the environment where fish species live or migrate. And as we have seen they have to
know where they can find the fishes and they have also to know how they can fish them combining
environment knowledge with the practical fishing techniques.

The traditional fishing tools are the result of fishermen’s life experiences and nature observations
transmitted from one generation to another. All the fishing tools that we have described and that are being
used have been constructed according to the local fishermen knowledge of nature and the fish life. As
Grigore Antipa put it ” the fishermen is a nature product “.

REFERENCES

1. ANTIPA (G.), 1916 - Pescaria si pescuitul in Romania. Librariile Socec & COMP., C. Sfetea, Pavel Suru, Bucuresti
2. SEBELA (M.), 2002 - Dunajska Delta, barvy, vune a halsy prirodniho raje. Moravske zemska museum
3. STARAS (M.), 2002 – Fishery in relation to the environment in the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve.

Manuscript received: February, 2009

Manuscript accepted: June, 2009
Printed: September 2009

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Fig. 1. Fishing licence issued by Fig. 2. Fishing licence issued by Fig. 3. Fishing areas and
ANPA DDBRA authorized tools

Fig. 4. Drawings of setci for the Pontic shad fishing Fig. 5. Drawings of setci for the Pontic shad fishing
(source: G. Antipa - Pescaria si pescuitul in (source: G. Antipa - Pescaria si pescuitul in
Romania) Romania)

Fig. 6. Ava (source: G. Antipa - Pescaria si pescuitul in Romania)

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Fig. 7. The way in which the fishermen fish the Pontic shad (source: G. Antipa - Pescaria si pescuitul in
Romania)

Fig. 8. Fisherman throwing the fishing net Fig. 9. Fishermen rowing.

Fig. 10. Fisherman taking out the “setca” Fig. 11. Removing the Pontic shad from the net.

Fig. 12. Boxes with Pontic shad. Fig. 13. Preparisons for throwing the “setca”.

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Fig. 14. An old fishermen making an ava Fig. 15. Fisherman with a Chinese carp

Fig. 16. Fishermen taking out the fish (crucian) from the nets (ave)

Fig. 17. Vintir (source: G. Antipa - Pescaria si pescuitul in Romania)

Fig. 17. ”Vintir” – a passive fishing tool. Fig. 18. Old fishermen transporting a ”vintir”

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Fig. 19. Talian (photo from Miroslav Sebela, Dunajska Delta, barvy, vune a halsy prirodniho raje)

Fig. 20. ”Pripoane” Fig. 21. Fishing bite (hag)

Fig. 22. ”Drigola”

Fig. 23. Sharpening the hook. Fig. 24. ”Carmace”

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