The night and the waters of the Bay of Biscay are the protagonists of antxoa fishing. With the arrival of spring more than 160 boats set sail in search of this precious fish, which spends the winter in cold and very deep waters and travels to the Cantabrian Sea in search of more temperate zones.

Once they are in this area, it is the boats that have work to do. It is a traditional fishing method that is mainly carried out with purse seine nets. In this way, they manage to make a selective fishing without harming other species that live in the sea beds.

This is a sustainable type of fishing, as it aims to catch the largest anchovies, so that the smaller ones continue to grow.

Limit of kilos

In this year’s anchovy coast, the fishermen of the Bay of Biscay agreed, as they do every year, to limit fishing for this specimen to 6,000 kilos per day per boat, of the 10,000 kilos allowed. With this restriction they wanted to sell the anchovies at an adequate price. If they saw it was necessary, they would be willing to increase that figure as they saw fit.

These decisions are always taken together so that all the ships have the same limitations. Although, the objective of all of them is the same: the fishing of the Cantabrian Anchovy. A fish of the highest quality that must be looked after from the moment it is caught until it reaches the end consumer, so as not to damage either the product or any of its production processes. In this way, we would obtain delicious anchovies that look good.