For the first time this year, the famous fishers on horseback of Oostduinkerke rode out this Easter Monday. Unfortunately, their catch was a poor one.
It’s a time-honoured tradition. The fishers in this west coast resort use Brabant draught horses for their forays into the murky waters of the North Sea in their search for grey North Sea shrimps. The first trip of the year attracted a lot of spectators. North Sea shrimps are not doing so well it seems. Commercial catches are meagre, making the delicacy extremely expensive in fish shops and restaurants. And the fishermen's catch today was also pretty pitiful.
A fisher VRT News spoke with after he returned from fishing for three-quarters of an hour as part of a display spoke of a very poor catch: “There’s nothing left. It’s too warm. There are only schools of whiting and the like. You can actually count the shrimps! Hard times have hit the grey shrimp!”