Comparative fishing to evaluate the viability of an aligned footgear designed to reduce seabed contact in northern shrimp bottom trawl fisheries

We developed and evaluated an innovative trawl technology that reduces seabed contact while targeting northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) off the east coast of Canada. The innovative footgear, referred to as the "aligned footgear", was evaluated in a flume tank to estimate contact area wit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian journal of fisheries and aquatic sciences 2018-02, Vol.75 (2), p.201-210
Main Authors: Winger, Paul D, Munden, Jenna G, Nguyen, Truong X, Grant, Scott M, Legge, George
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alignment
Capelin
Catchability
Coasts
Comparative analysis
Crustaceans
Equipment and supplies
Evaluation
Fisheries
Fishing
Gear construction
Gear materials
Gear selectivity
Halibut
Mallotus villosus
Marine
Methods
New products
Ocean floor
Pandalus borealis
Reinhardtius hippoglossoides
Shrimping
Studies
Technology
Trawling
Trawlnets
Ultrasonic testing
Viability
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Summary:We developed and evaluated an innovative trawl technology that reduces seabed contact while targeting northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) off the east coast of Canada. The innovative footgear, referred to as the "aligned footgear", was evaluated in a flume tank to estimate contact area with the seabed and then tested at sea for engineering performance and catchability. Results demonstrated that the aligned footgear trawl produced a substantial reduction (i.e., 61%) in the predicted contact area with the seabed compared with the identical trawl equipped with traditional rockhopper footgear. A total of 20 paired tows (n = 40 tows) were subsequently conducted at sea to evaluate fishing performance. The aligned footgear trawl caught significantly more northern shrimp (+23%), capelin (Mallotus villosus) (+71%), and Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) (+99%) compared with the traditional rockhopper bottom trawl.
ISSN:0706-652X
1205-7533
DOI:10.1139/cjfas-2016-0461