New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts
Catch characteristics of commercial gill-nets in a nearshore fishery in central
New Zealand
MICHAEL J. H. HICKFORD*
DAVID R. SCHIEL
Department of Zoology
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch, New Zealand
J. BRIAN JONES
National Institute of Water and Atmospheric
Research Ltd
P. O. Box 14 901
Wellington, New Zealand
*Present address: Fisheries Department of Western Australia, c/o Agriculture
WA, 3 Baron-Hay Court, South Perth 6151, Western Australia.
Abstract Commercial gill-nets of three mesh sizes (3.5",
4.5", 5.5" diagonal measure) were joined into a single net 300 m long and 5 m
high, and set at three localities (New Plymouth, Palliser Bay, Bay of Plenty)
in the lower North Island, New Zealand. The nets were bottom-set in shallow
(9-26 m depth) and deep (35-100 m depth) water, mostly for 16 h, to test the
effects of mesh size on the species composition and sizes of fish caught. In 17
sets, 3284 fish of 55 species were caught. Across all species, larger fish were
caught in deep water and at the two largest mesh sizes. The species caught and
proportional composition of the catches varied both between locations and mesh
sizes. Overall, there were important differences between mesh sizes, depths,
and locations in the species composition and size distribution of gill-net
catches, as well as a wide range of species and sizes caught within single
sets. Indications are that effective targeting of individual species at the
nearshore-pelagic interface may be confounded by bycatch.
Keywords gill-net, targeting, fishery, species composition
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 1997, Vol. 31:
249-259
0028-8330/97/3102-0249 $7.00/0 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand
1997
PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (829K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)
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