Nippon Suisan Gakkaishi 67 (3), 444-448 (2001)

Development of Seine Net for Separating Snow Crab from Flatfish

Mitsuru Horie,1 Masakazu Yasuda,2 Hiroshi Hashimoto2

1Fukui Prefectural Fisheries Experimental Station, Fukui 914-0843, 2Fisheries Department of Fukui Prefecture, Fukui 910-8580, Japan

Two-level codends with a sorting panel (mesh length about 600mm) were designed to sort flatfish from snow crab for coastal Seiners in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture. A series of fishing trials for the effectiveness of species sorting panel was carried out under four conditions (two lengths of sorting panel, and with or without float).

About 90% of snow crabs entered the lower codend through the sorting panel at all trials. On the other hand, the proportion of flatfish caught into the upper codend ranged between 26-87% for each condition. When a longer sorting panel was installed horizontally, the proportion of flatfish caught in the upper codend became higher.

The Seine net with the sorting panel designed in this study allows snow crab to escape effectively, while catching flatfish in the off season of snow crab fishing. This proved to be useful for the conservation of snow crab resources.


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