// FISHING TRADE //

The residents of this area engaged in the fishing trade since their arrival in ancient times as they had at their disposal the rich hunting grounds of Telašćica and the Kornati islands. The fishing trade made it possible to provide for their families and to settle down in this area. The oldest mention of fishing in Croatia is a document called DAROVNICA dating back to the years 986 - 999, by which the noblemen of Zadar gave their right to fish at the islands Molat and Dugi otok to the monastery of St Grisogonus in Zadar.

islands Molat and Dugi otok to the monastery of St Grisogonus in Zadar. There are documents from the 11^th century that mention fishermen from Telašćica by name. These are our oldest known names of Croatian fishermen. In Telašćica existed at that time the first organized fishing party in Dalmatia which used seine nets to fish mackerel. Since the mid 12th century existed a form of giving and sometimes a form of mandatory giving part of the caught fish to the church in the name of forgiveness for the “sin of performing fishing on Sundays and holidays”.

Fishermen caught the fish in a number of bays and a variety of submarine terrain where they could haul the seine nets pulling them out towards the coast. Since ancient time fishermen caught mackerel, Atlantic mackerel, horse mackerel, surmullet, white sea bream, two-banded bream, squid, cuttlefish, pickerel and other fish especially groundfish. The fishermen established by themselves a regime and a set order to avoid any misunderstanding in using the fishing-grounds. The regime was set every year at the beginning of the fishing season by drawing lots. Fishermen kept their boats mainly in bays Jaz, Tripuljak and Magrovica, where traces of little piers and small walls on the coast built of dry wall can still be found.

"The sea is a God-given plough-field
That you don’t need to dig,
Nor plow, nor manure, nor sow,
But only reasonably reap."

Petar Lorini