Tuna Commercial Fishing

Tuna fishing process is of great economical interest as it allows the use of mother ships able to supply the fleet with food and meantime to collect catches in order to bring them back to the Ship Owner country. Fishing boats are most of the time at sea and very rarely come to pier (but for mechanical failures).

The following flags are present in Mauritanian waters: UE, Japan , Ghana , Senegal , Russia , Ukraine , Cabo Verde , Cyprus , St Vincent & Grenadines , Honduras , Belize , etc…

There are two type of fishing gears that can be used :

   ·Surface long-liner & pole-and-line tuna vessels
   ·Tuna purse net vessels

The longline used for tuna fishing is made up of units (sometimes known as "baskets"), each of which consists of a main horizontal line about 250 to 800 m long with 4 to 15 branch-lines, each with a wire leader and a hook.

The depth where the hooks are set in the water column is a crucial element, this depth in which the longline is settled can be regulated mainly by modifying the intervals of the main line between float lines and partially by adjusting the length of float-line and/or the speed of shooting, to a lesser extent, by modifying the length of the branch-lines.

Industrial tuna longliners are usually large vessel with length ranging between 30 and 70 m.

The basic requirements for longliners are to have adequate speed to reach far away fishing grounds, enough autonomy (fuel, water, accommodation of crew, etc.), capacity for operating in the high sea (sometimes very rough seas), facility for very efficient freezing storage (to reach very cold temperature under 45°C) so as to keep the highly valued tuna for months together, suitable deck arrangement, equipment, protection of crew from rough weather and sea conditions, machineries for shooting and hauling up longlines quickly and proper storage facilities for keeping the fishing gears and accessories.

These large specialized vessels can stay away from their home ports for a year. Therefore tuna fishing campaigns last all year long as tuna fishing stock is moving along the coasts of both Mauritania and Senegal .

Therefore tuna fishing campaigns last all year long as tuna fishing stock is moving along the coasts of both Mauritania and Senegal.

Tuna commercial fishing belong to the “special fishing” category and calls for a dedicated license. It is only performed under the  “Free Licensing” scheme with no restriction regarding trans-shipment in open roadstead. To get a tuna fishing license or to buy Tuna wholesale please contact us!