Dumalinao has a total coastal area of 75.58 Km² producing more or less 340.4 mt per annum of various fishery products produced by its natural resources such as mangorves, seagrass beds, coral reefs, tidal flat and marine ecosystems.

Being the coastal town facing the rich water of Illana Bay and presence of wide developed fishponds makes Dumalinao of great advantage in terms of fishery resources. Dumalinao is endowed with a fair share of fishery resources from both capture fisheries and fishpond development.

Fishing is very common among the residents of the seven coastal barangays. Some fishermen are engaged in fish pen culture and agar-agar farming. Most fishers employ traditional gears such as single hook-and-line, multiple hook and line, fish corrals (bungsod), gill nets, spear, and fish traps. Still a few are into fish cage and oyster culture. A number of these fishers also engage in farming for their daily sustenance and augment their income through fishing.

Twenty-nine fishermen from Barangay Bibilik were interviewed by members of the FGD group to obtain important data on fishing activities, yield and effort, and estimate of gross daily income from fishing. Although the majority (83%) of these respondents are fulltime fishers, all of them engage in a variety of alternative livelihood activities such as animal raising, farming, fishpond work and small ("sari-sari" store) business.

A total of 7 different kinds of  fishing gears were identified (Table  3) where multiple hand-line, single hand-line and fish corral are the most commonly  operated gears. Average catch rates (or CPUE) and daily income for each gear type are presented in Table 3. The generic hook-and-line gear is comprised of two modifications (single and multiple). Catch rates values are highest on the gillnet (22.5 kg/fisher/day), but this is based on only a single respondent. Many fishermen from Bibilik (who are also members of the MPA Core team) alleged that this value is an overestimate based on their observations of the usual catch rate of this gear.

Kinds of Fishing Gears and the estimated average catch rates of Bibilik fishermen.