how many fish did the fisherman catch on that night
Answers
Answer:
Before I answer this question, i will clarify couple of points. 1. Some fishermen do "set out" for fishing at night and it is not the case with all fishermen. 2. Setting out to fish is not the same as actually fishing.
Secondly, to understand the answer to this question better, one needs to first understand various kinds of vessels used to go fishing and various kinds of nets used to catch fish.
Catamaran - Manual - The oldest and most primitive fish hunting vessel. Used by humans for over 4000 years. No compass, No motor, just few men rowing against the tide. They start as early as 2 am in the morning, because that is the time typically when the wind is blowing from the land towards the sea, so it is easy to sail through the sea. They travel like that for 4 hours and reach a point that they know through experience (no compass) that fish is available aplenty. Typically around 6 am in the morning the sun is up in the sky with a carpet of golden hue light spread across the ocean. Now this attracts the fish below and they come up to the surface apart from other reasons like to breath and feed. That is when the fisherman catch these fish using various techniques like Hook Line, Cash Net, Perseine net, Gill Net etc. So here, the reason they set out at night is because wind is favourable and also they reach the fishing point at dawn so that fish comes up seeing the light. These fishermen do not have any ice to store the fish. They simply put the fish on the boat and come back by around 2 pm to sell the fish. So typically they hunt for fish from 6 am to 10 am and then they start their return journey to the land and this is the time when wind is blowing from the sea to the land so once again it is easy to sail through. A 12 hour trip in total. No fishing at night at all.
Catamaran - Mechanised - Same as above just that, it is supported by a motor and hence easy to sail through and it takes shorter time to reach the destination and vice versa.
Mechanised Boat - These boats have the facility of storing ice and they go out hunting typically around 4 in the evening or early morning based on their convenience. They are out hunting for 4 to 5 days. In some coasts, these boats set out for hunting some 15 days deeper and deeper into the sea. If the target is to catch fish that is predominantly nocturnal, they fish at night, else day time. Now certain techniques like Hook & Line take considerable amount of time to complete the setup of the process of catching fish. (Imagine a 4 km wire with hooks at a meter distance from each other and you have to arrange a dead mackeral fish as bait to every hook and leave it into the sea) such setup may be made at evening or night and then the fishermen typically wait for 8 hours until they pull it back. In such scenarios overlap of day and night could happen. Like mentioned earlier unless the target fish is nocturnal there is no reason they would hunt at night. Similarly, incase the fishermen decide to use a gill net. They would build a wall in the ocean where there is calm and of course where fish tend to be available using a net which has the ability to catch on to the gills of the fish once it tries to pass through the net. Once the gill net setup is over, fishermen wait for some 8 to 10 hours to check for fish.
Trawler - Huge vessel with a good facilities including manufacturing of ice. The technique used is basing sweeping the ocean floor (Demersal fish) or the middle of the water column for Benthic fish. In this technique a net, with only one side opening is dragged through the ocean to catch fish. Once again unless the target is nocturnal fish, there is no reason why these fishermen would hunt at night. 5 to 7 days of hunting trips.
Perseiner - It is a moving fish processing plant. Water purifying units, fish freezing units and they set out for fishing like for months. Mainly using Perseine technique where helicopter aboard the vessel typically tours across the ocean and identifies shoals of fish, also a sonar could be used to identify schools/battery of fish. The vessel approaches the point and a huge net which has one side opening is cast in to the sea. Couple of mechanised boats will take one end of the net in a circle to ensure the fish shoal is surrounded by the net and once this is confirmed the net is lifted to catch the fish. The nets are so huge as is the catch that cranes are used to operate the net and fish from the net is pumped into the perceiver using a motor. Typically hunt in shifts depending on the target fish and if it is nocturnal then they do hunt at night.
Answer:
5fishes catches on that night