The dense aggregations of Northeast Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in the Barents Sea have led to a new fishing practice termed “buffer towing.” In this fishery, many trawlers redeploy the trawl directly after taking the catch onboard in an attempt to secure a continuous supply of fish and avoid any unnecessary stops during processing. If the approximate desired amount of fish is caught or exceeded ...

The discussion of alternative harvest patterns in commercial fisheries has been raised by stock assessment and fishery modelers, especially in the wider context of balanced harvesting. But often, these theoretical approaches propose alternative exploitation patterns that are difficult to achieve within the current limitations in the selectivity characteristics of fishing gears, such as trawl gears. ...

In the Northeast Atlantic deep-water shrimp (Pandalus borealis) trawl fishery, the bycatch of juvenile fish and shrimp represents a problem. This study evaluated if inserting a 200 mm mesh size top-panel in the last three sections of the tapered upper belly section of the trawl could reduce bycatch of juveniles while maintaining the catch efficiency for deep-water shrimp. The bycatch species ...

The Nordmøre grid is the principle bycatch mitigation device in many shrimp trawl fisheries. However, in several of these fisheries, bycatch is a problem because small sized fish can pass through the grid and enter the codend together with the targeted shrimp. One such fishery is the Northeast Atlantic deep-water shrimp (<i>Pandalus borealis</i>) fishery, where the use of a Nordmøre grid is mandatory. ...

Several shrimp trawl fisheries use a Nordmöre sorting grid to avoid bycatch of fish. However, small fish can pass through the grid. Therefore, the retention of juvenile fish often remains an issue during shrimp trawling. We investigated the vertical distribution of deepwater shrimp (<i>Pandalus borealis</i>) and dominant bycatch species at the point where the Nordmöre grid section is installed. This ...

The Nordmøre grid and the sieve panel are two of the main devices used to reduce fish bycatch in trawl fisheries targeting shrimp species. However, even when using such devices, some small-sized fish enter the codend of the trawl together with the targeted shrimp. Therefore, bycatch reduction remains a problem in some shrimp fisheries. One such fishery is the Northeast Atlantic deep-water shrimp ...

In the North-East Atlantic demersal trawl fishery targeting cod and haddock, the interest on fishing gear designs that preserve fish quality and welfare has grown. However, the gear configurations tested so far imply practical challenges, therefore, more user-friendly designs are still sought by the industry. For a new design to be considered, it needs to have size selective properties that are at ...

Sorting grids and square mesh panels are the two most-applied technical devices to supplement codend size- and species-selection in demer- sal trawls. In the Barents Sea gadoid fishery, the compulsory size-selectivity system comprises a mesh section with a sorting grid followed by a diamond mesh codend. We tested the size-selective performance of a new sorting section that comprised a sorting grid ...

In this study, size selectivity and exploitation pattern of six diamond-mesh codends with different mesh sizes, ranging from 25 to 54 mm, for Southern velvet shrimp (Metapenaeopsis palmensis) were tested and compared in a shrimp trawl fishery of the South China Sea (SCS). We used a codend with a mesh size of 25 mm (D25) as a starting point, which is the minimum mesh size (MMS) currently regulated ...

The size selectivity and usability of three codends were quantified and compared for the first time in the inshore Northern shrimp (<i>Pandalus borealis</i>) trawl fishery of Iceland using the covered codend method: a conventional diamond-mesh codend (T0), conventional square-mesh codend (T45), and a 90° turned mesh codend (T90) constructed of four panels and with shortened lastridge ropes. Fishers, ...