Seafaring Muxía was a poor town. Life was precarious because outside the town there were no lands for growing crops and nowhere to gather firewood. The modern Muxía in its time of economic splendour came about in the 1960s, when a significant and rich fishing ground was discovered – O Canto. Many popular species in the market were caught there, like sea bream, hake and gilthead … this led to the development of the town and its roads, giving rise to Muxía as we know it today.
There are now various leisure boats as well as the fishing vessels, all moored in the harbour.
Fishing and tackle
“You can catch everything here”, says Xosé Búa, a local fisherman since the 1980s. “Often you don’t know what’s in the tackle as the main ocean currents all flow together here – the Humboldt, the Greenland current and the one from Cape Town. You can catch a ling one day and a gilthead the next”. Most of the fish caught here are sold at the fish market in A Coruña.
Line and hook. Muxía was traditionally an important port for line fishing (with a hook) and had one of the largest fleets in Spain for this method. Up to 1985 it led the ranking of hake fishing in Spain. Hake is the main species caught with a line and hook, while other species include sea bream, harvest fish, red mullet, horse mackerel, blue whiting, grouper and conger eels.
Offshore fishing
Nets: plaice, sea bream, monk fish, large angler fish.
Tackle: spider crab, brown crab, blue lobster, velvet swimming crab, octopus.
Trawlers
The fish caught are varied, although the main ones are blue whiting, mackerel and horse mackerel.
Sector associations
They gather barnacles and razor shells. There is also a joint plan with other guilds on the Death Coast (Costa da Morte) to gather sea urchins.
Location
Address
The port. Muxía, A Coruña