Tracks, trawls and lines-Knowledge practices of skippers in the Namibian hake fisheries

Based on interviews with demersal trawl and longline captains targeting hakes (Merluccius capensis and Merluccius paradoxus), this paper looks into specific knowledge practices in relation to the skipper's tasks of finding and catching fish and some of the challenges encountered when attempting to mobilise that knowledge for fisheries management. Observing that knowledge production is influenced by the technology and fishing method used, the article describes several key aspects of fishing behaviour at sea. These, involve critical decisions the skipper has to make, such as choice of fishing area, position, direction and length of trawls. Specific insights about the social-ecological network of relations that can be gained from observing these decisions, are discussed. The article concludes that formal methods to mobilise and transfer information from fishers through logbooks and digital cartography, cannot capture important aspects of fishers' knowledge because the information is decontextualised and separated from experiences that are made in the process of fishing. Rather than focusing on fishers as providers of data on fishing mortality only, considering fisheries as networks of relations in which fishing takes place in response to other actors, allows a better understanding of fisheries dynamics, which in turn is important for sustainable fisheries management.