Seerfiehes in Sri Lanka are economically important because
of th eir high market value. However, there is no seperate fishery
for seerfish . As in many other tropical fish eries the majority
o f fish eries in Sri Lanka are multispecies and multigear.
Seerfish are caught right round the island by many va rieties
o f gear that are used mainly for large pelagic fish species.
G illn ets, t r o ll lines and hand lines are the main pontributers
to the production o f this va riety. Combination gears are used
by most o f the fishing crafts and because o f the high market
value fishermen tend to put more e ffo rt in catching seerfish
with additional gears. They use t r o ll lines while sailin g to
and from the fishing grounds and hand lines while they are operating
main fishing gears, usually g illn e ts and longlines.
The to ta l seerfish production in Sri Lanka has remained
around 35^0 NT per annum during the past few years. This is
about 2.5% o f the tota l marine fish- production. Though-this
species is an economically important one in Sri Lanka, the
available literatu re on this species is very lim ited. Jinadasa ( 1900) described the species composition, size range and age and
maturity o f ScomberomoruB commerson from the west coast. Some
information on seerfish are also available in publications on
fish eries fo r large pelagics and tuna-like species (De Bruin 1970f Joseph--1985 and Maldeniya et a l 1987).
The present paper describee- the d ifferen t methods of
exploitation, production trends, seasonal variation in catches,
species composition and the size distribution o f the important
species o f seerfish in the waters around Sri Lanka.