Fishery development on the Corn Islands, Nicaragua
The first European sailors that came across the Great Corn Island and Little Corn Island reported an abundance of fish, crustaceans, and mainly turtles. Their accounts recorded from the early sixteenth century described the islands as a prime site to replenish their food supply on board to continue their voyage around the Americas, of which turtle meat was a prized item.
After the emancipation from slavery in 1841, it took the islands more than a century to carry out commercial fishing. This was not seen until 1956. Before then, it was an activity mainly for subsistence, as the main economic focus of the early settlers and freed slaves were growing crops and raising livestock.
In the year 1956, two North Americans by the name of Jack Bowers and Will Bowers came to the Corn Islands with a vessel named 1B. They started a lobster fishing program among the locals. This particular vessel had freezing capabilities on board, and they would process lobster tails until they had a load and then sail to Panama where it was further exported to the United States. Soon after, the capacity of the vessel was not enough, so they moved on land, building a freezing processing facility by the name of Will's Bowers.
The Pacific Seafood de Nicaragua S.A, or simply Pasenic, is still in the original location where this facility was built. Subsequently, in the years shortly after they were two other processing facilities, one by the name of Copesa, which was very short-lived and never established, and another by the name Elanca, that operated for some time.
During those days, the method of fishery consisted of hand-plotted wild cane traps, using whip (whit, in local dialect) from trees as rope, dried light bob apples as floats, and woodlice nests and broken coconuts as bait. The average fisherman had around 3 to 9 traps or fish pots, and they would haul these three to four times a day using dug-out canoes with sails and paddles. This new economic activity proved much more lucrative than the traditional growing of crops and raising of animals. It shifted socioeconomically the islands for good, as fishing activities today still persist as the main source of livelihood on the islands with the presence of two major companies, Pacific Seafood de Nicaragua S.A. (Pasenic) and Central American Fisheries S.A. (CAF).
The islands have come a long way since those early days, and a lot of things have changed. The people have shifted from wild cane traps to wire traps and later on to board traps and driven crafts (pangas) instead of sails and paddles, wooden traps on industrial refrigerated vessels with living conditions on board, and fishing trips for as long as 45 days.
The diversification of lobster fishing techniques including diving with scuba equipment for more efficient harvesting has also been part of the modern fishing activity on the islands. In addition, islanders now do substantial fishing using hand lines and Industrial long lines boats.
