When walking through an Indonesian coastal village, I came across this odd site. Were the villagers taking a break, playing a good ole' friendly competition of tug of war? Nope. They were actually working hard, fishing together for their livelihood.
The word "fishing" has always conjured up pictures of rods and reels, jigs and plugs, bobbers and swivels, hooks and sinkers, and a stringer full of largemouth bass. But not so in Indonesia. While they do have that style of fishing, commercial fishermen usually use nets. In one style of net-fishing, a boat is used to drag a net out from the coast. A rope runs from the net the shore. Once the net is in place, the "fishermen" start pulling the rope. They pull and pull and pull, steadily leaning and stepping backward, as the back "puller" moves toward the front periodically.
A rope-person coils the rope as it comes in.
After an hour or two of pulling, the net finally nears the shore.
Hear you can start to see the size of the net as it circles out toward the boat.
As the net is brought in, the fish are dumped into a large basket that is dragged up farther on shore.
Fishermen (actually fisherwomen) pick through the catch, sorting the fish by type.
The squid from the catch are separated out and weighed.
Other types of fish are sorted out and sold as well.
Profits are divided between those fishermen who participated. Each day the nets are sent out and pulled in 2-4 times. And after hours of tugging every day, tug-of-war is probably not among a fisherman's hobbies. Neither is fishing.