About 53.76’per cent of the country’s fish production comes from the inland fish including the freshwater fisheries like tanks ponds, rivers, irrigation canals, reservoirs and water lakes; and the estuarine fisheries like espies, delta channels, back waters, lagoons and lakes.
Inland fish production has gone up from lakh tones in 1950-51 to 35 lakh tones in 2 2004 exhibiting about 16 times increase in the production. Most of the fresh-water fishing is carried with hooks, lines and other trap devices and boats used only in large-fresh water lakes and reserved.
Inland fisheries are usually divided into categories : (a) the pond and lake fisheries, (b) riverine fisheries, and (c) the estuarine fisheries,
(a) Pond and Lake Fisheries-These inch large number of village ponds and tanks w’ fishing activities are carried on non-organised Pond culture is widespread in West Bengal, A Orissa, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Delhi. Important fish include Catla, rohita, mrigal, kalbasu, bat silver carp, grass carp, common carp, milkfish pearls hot etc.
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(b) Riverine Fisheries-About one-third of country’s fish-production comes from rivers.
Fishing activity is carried on during winter season from October to March. Main fish species include catla, kalbasu, tor, marital, vacha, anabas, millets, herring, hilsa, eels, anchovies and feather backs etc.
West Bengal, Bihar and Assam together account for 72 per cent of the total fresh water fisheries marketed in the country. Orissa (8%), Tamil Nadu (5%) and Uttar Pradesh (4%) are other states which are important for fresh-water aquaculture.
(c) Estuarine Fisheries-These fisheries are confined to the estuarine areas of the rivers like Ganga, Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri, Narmada, Tapi; the brackish water lakes of the Chilka, Pulicat etc; and the back-waters of Kerala. Here important fish species include hilsa, anchovies, mullets, perches, gouramy, pearl shot and milk fish etc. Brackish water fisheries are also carried on in the paddy fields (called Pakkali fields) along the Malabar Coast where mullets, prawns and chromites are important catches. Prawn culture has recently gained wide popularity in the Chilka Lake which is posing serious challenge to the natural environment of the lagoon.