Fishermen in the northern Mazandaran province are preparing a large net to be launched into the Caspian Sea as the hunting season started a couple of days ago.

The fishing season starts routinely in mid-October and lasts for about six months. Roughly four thousand people in the coastal provinces of Mazandaran and Gilan are engaged in fishing during the period.

Some 1,627 tons of bony fish were caught last year, a decrease of 34 percent year on year.