At Iwakuni Market's first auction, 4.2 kg of wild red sea bream (Tai) was sold for 109,200 yen. A good start for a celebratory market.
The auction reminds me of the Okikamuro Fisheries Association's pricing of fish, which the locals call 'netate'. The Okikamuro Fisheries Association has also undergone a number of mergers. It used to be the Okikamuro Fisheries Association. I heard that they split up for a while after the war. It became the Okikamuro Branch of the Towa Fisheries Association, and looking at the organizational chart on the Prefectural Fisheries Association's homepage, it is now: Prefectural Fisheries Association → Head of Iwakuni/Suo-Oshima → Towa Branch → Okikamuro Branch Office. However, the building of the Okikamuro branch office was also demolished at the end of last year.
When I was in elementary school, there were bamboo cages called danbe floating in the sea. It was interesting to watch the fish being loaded onto the live fish carrier 'Towa Maru'.
After all, at that time, I lived in a house right next door of the fishing association office. At the foot of the Okikamuro Ohashi Bridge, in front of the house facing the sea, there was a path about 1 meter width and the sea was right below. There was a house on top of a stone wall, and a boat was tied up in front of it. In those days, when the tide went out, it dried up. I lived there until before I entered elementary school, and I heard that I nearly died from falling off the shore three times. I remember once. As I was sinking and struggling, I was pulled up by an old man “Yanagisawa” who lived nearby. A concerned neighbor came to my house and looked at my butt as I bent over in the hot water. He said things like, "Here, there is cut". Even as a child, I thought, "You shouldn't watch it".
back to the topic. When I was a high school student, transporting fish is done by contractor who is Fisheries trader. We couldn't come to terms and changed frequently. At that time, fishermen's associations held pricing meetings about once a week. A price committee was selected from several fishermen and negotiated with the traders. My father was also a member of the pricing committee. Once the value was decided, it was transferred to his bankbook once a week. The fee paid to the fishermen's association was called "gobu no kousen" or "five% portion of the fee". It's 5%.
Currently, live fish trucks run by the Prefectural Fisheries Association are transporting the fish, but I don't know how to price them. I wonder how much the fishermen who caught the fish will receive when they auction it for the first time at Iwakuni Market. At normal beach prices, it would probably be less than 5,000 yen. In the past, this island alone accounted for 70% of the catch in the former Towa Town. There was a time like that.
Shoji Matsumoto
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