Fish auction in Urk

After visiting the interesting museum in Urk (did I tell you yesterday that Urk is over 100 years old? They could not tell me if it actually was inhabited in 966 when it was first mentioned), we went to the fish auction.

There are two fish auctions in Urk, one in the industrial area where fish from the Urk North Sea fleet is brought by truck from the sea ports where the fleet lands their fish these days (after the Zuiderzee was closed off in 1932). This is one of Europe's biggest fish auctions.

Here at the harbour is another, smaller, one where the IJsselmeer fishing boats deliver their fish. The fish is brought straight of the boats every weekday, weighed, inspected by the buyers and then auctioned in the 'meinzaal'. The system is - of course - a Dutch auction, where the auctioneer starts with a high price and then decreases it until someone wants to buy the lot at that price. In the old days, he would shout 'mijn' ('mine') to indicate that he was buying at that price, hence the term 'mijnzaal' (zaal= hall). These days it's done electronically, a clock shows the (decreasing) price and the buyer presses a button when he likes the price.

Here are a few impressions:






Eel in a drum, before taken from the fishing boat.





The drums on the trolley on the way to the auction.





Weighing and inspecting each lot.





A lot from UK322, 23 pounds, sold at €3.83 per pound to buyer #08.

Location:Dormakade,Urk,The Netherlands