Marine fisheries are well developed in some parts of the West African coastline. Particularly important for fishing are the coastal waters of Mauritania and northern Senegal.   This coastline is washed by cool waters of the Canary current which create favourable conditions for plankton.
Most fishermen concentrate on in shore fishing in the shallow waters along the continental shelf.
They still use traditional fishing methods like fish traps, hooks, castnets and even spearing in the waters of coastal lagoons and swamps, some fishermen now use nylon nets which have come in to replace the nets made of natural fibres.
Others operate beach seine nets from sandy beaches along some parts of the coast.
Much of the fishing in the open sea is carried out from large dug-out canoes which are made by hollowing trunks of big trees. Up to the late 1960s these canoes were propelled by paddles and sails but some fishermen have bought small out-board motors which are fitted to their boats.
Boats with out-board motors can now move faster to and from the fishing grounds. They have also enabled fishermen to move a little bit farther from the shore.
Nevertheless these motors are not powerful enough to enable the fishermen to travel more than a few kilometres from the shore or to stay at sea for a few hours at a time.
Generally, deep-sea or off-shore fishing is not yet well developed in West Africa. It is still in its infancy. It can be seen developing in the territorial waters of Senegal, Ghana, Mauritania and Ivory Coast where modern fishing methods like deep sea trawling and long lining have been introduced. This may partly explain why these countries at present have the largest marine catches in the whole of West Africa.
In Senegal the main fishing centres are Dakar, Mbour, St. Louis, Joal and Sangomar.
In Mauritania the use of modern fishing methods begun in the period between 1966 and 1968 when a fleet of 8 trawlers and six other modern vessels were built.
Commercial fishing, has been reinforced by the development of Nouadhibou as a modern fishing port with modern handling and processing facilities.
In Ghana there is, an increasing number of fishing canoes, fitted with cut-board engines.' This may explain why there has been a very sharp rise in the fish catch since the 1960s. There is also a small fleet of motorised trawlers which sail as far as waters off Senegal, Mauritania and the Canary islands.
Unfortunately the Ghanaians are not yet able to compete favourably with foreign fishing vessels from Japan, Korea and Russia which operate from the ports of Tema, Takoradi and Elmina but do not sell most of their catch in Ghana.
The Ghana man government is trying to control the operations of foreign fleets so as to confer more benefits to the local fishermen. One of the steps taken has been the creation of the state Fishing Corporation which is a government parastatal operating modern fishing vessels. Another step so far taken has been the establishment of the State Boat yards Corporation based at Sekondi; and its work is to build modern fishing boats.
Ghana's fishing industry, however, still faces some salient problems like lack of efficient processing and marketing facilities. Much of the fish are processed by drying and smoking and then sent to markets in wicker baskets. The government is trying to solve these problems by experimenting with better ovens, polyethylene packing of the fish after smoking, and packing in wooden fish crates.
The Ivorian fishing industry is based: on' the "Port of Abidjan from where modern tuna and sardine fishing vessels operate alongside the traditional canoes. Most of the modern vessels are owned by the French fishing companies.
Another fishing country in West Africa is Liberia. Here local fishermen like those of the Km tribe still operate drug-out canoes. There is also an important fishing company called Mesurado which markets about 15000 tonnes of fish a year. This company operates a fleet of about 30 shrimp and fishing trawlers from the Port of Monrovia.
Nigeria has both in-shore and off-shore fisheries. The Niger delta has become the major inshore fishing ground. But more attention is being given to the development of off-shore fish resources.
The Nigerian government is encouraging boat construction and establishment of fish processing plants. Foreign vessels have found the ports of Lagos and Port Harcourt good landing sites. At these ports there arc also modern refrigerated fish storage depots.