The marine fishery of Pakistan is located on the coastal areas of two districts – Sindh and Balochistan. The total fish landed in Sindh for 2001 was 299.615 MT and Balochistan landed 125,560 MT in the same year.
In Pakistan, various types of fishing gear are in use. They include shrimp trawl nets, gillnets (ruch), seine nets (katra net), bottom-set gillnets (thukri), beach seines, cast nets and bottom-set long-lines. Shrimp trawling is prohibited along the Balochistan coast. Along the Sindh coast, a simple type of purse seine (katra) fishery has been developed in the past twenty years. It targets inshore stocks of small pelagics, for the fishmeal industry, using open boats fitted with 2 to 4 long-tailed outboard engines. Plastic nets and surmai plastic nets are new gear which is used to target specific fish species.
Karachi fish harbour caters for the needs of 70-80 percent of the local fishing fleet. Pasni harbour is used by the fishermen the Pasni area. A fisheries harbour-cum-mini port has been constructed and is partly operation at Gwader. Coastal fishing craft operate along both coasts in depths not exceeding 50 m.
The marine sector fishing fleet in 2001 consisted of 13,185 operational vessels, of which 2,564 were shrimp trawlers and 3 600 were gillnetters. The remaining 8 552 were motor-cum-sail boats with outboard engines.
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