Fishermen in Turkey go to the sea to collect sand mussels

Fishermen go to the sea at the first light of the day to collect sand mussels, known as "cik cik" among the people. The mussels, which are extracted with great effort by the fishermen by scanning the bottom of the sea with the sieves set up before the hunting season, are discharged into the boats. The mussels, which are separated according to the determined criteria, are placed in sacks at the desired level, and the smaller ones are released into the sea again. After the hunt, which lasted for about 6 hours, the sacks, which are brought to the port and checked, are loaded on trucks and sent to factories in Çanakkale, Istanbul and Balıkesir for processing. Depending on the weather conditions, the mussels, which are caught 10 tons per day per boat, are sent to countries such as Spain, Japan and Norway via Italy and this country, usually in canned form, to be used in pasta and salads after the processes in the factory. It is planned that 8,500 tons of sand mussels collected by ...