Fishing News article

The following article appeared in Fishing News, 6 August 2004. It is made available here with their permission:

Fishermen and scientists work together

The Fisheries Science Partnership (FSP) brings fishermen and scientists closer together to collect new data, vital to the sustainable management of fish stocks.

To date, the £1 million FSP programme has yielded 1,000 hauls of fisheries samples.

The 2003 FSP used commercial fishing vessels to carry out 10 projects all around the English coast. The NFFO and scientists, at the Cefas laboratory at Lowestoft worked closely together to agree and implement the programme.

Joe Horwood, Defra chief fisheries science adviser at Cefas, said: "A massive number of new samples have been obtained in the first year of the programme. Already the information has been used in ICES and by managers. And the scientists have relished the opportunity of working closer with fishermen at sea."

The partnership

In January 2003, the government agreed funding for the industry which included £1 million for fishermen and scieNovember 2, 2006s co-operated intensively to develop a programme to improve knowledge of our fish stocks.

Most projects surveyed particular stocks, and measured the size and age composition of catches. The level of white fish bycatch in industrial fisheries has been a concern to many UK fishermen. Two surveys looked at the whitefish bycatch in the sandeel and pout fisheries of the North Sea.

Three surveys concerned stocks in the south west, a further three investigated North Sea stocks and others looked at Irish Sea cod and deep water species.

A summary of the projects is given below. Full reports will be available on the Cefas website [www.cefas.co.uk] and a link from the NFFO site [www.nffo.org.uk].

The projects

Whitefish bycatch in sandeel fishing areas

In July 2003 the Jubilee Quest (skippered by Graham Hall) used a 16mm commercial sandeel net to monitor the whitefish bycatch on the West Dogger sandeel grounds. Some 40 hauls were made with the sandeel net, three with a whitefish net on sandeel grounds, and one with a sandeel net on whitefish grounds.

Sandeels comprised 50-65% of the catch, below that required to meet EU catch composition rules. But sandeel abundance was exceptionally low in 2003. The sandeel net caught few gadoids, although there were two good hauls of 20+ cm whiting, and one good haul of 0-group whiting (25-55mm) on the SW edge of the Dogger.

Adult cod and haddock were caught in the whitefish net, but not in the sandeel net. The sandeel net is evidently capable of retaining 0-group gadoids (whiting), but their distribution was patchy, and no juvenile cod were caught.

Whitefish bycatch in the pout fishery

In December the Swanella (skippered by Mally Trott) operated a Danish small-meshed Norway pout net along the north eastern edge of the Norway Pout box in the North Sea.

Catches were a mixture of Norway pout, 20-40cm haddock and whiting, 22-30cm herring and mackerel, and a negligible catch of cod and other species.

Norway pout catches were 25% by weight and 57% by number, but bycatches of the other species were significant. One catch was 50 tonnes of mackerel. Four hauls carried out with a rockhopper whitefish trawl and a 20mm liner caught mainly haddock and whiting. The 5% bycatch limit was typically exceeded.

Western Channel sole and plaice

Beam trawlers, Lady T Emiel (skippered by Mike Sharp) and Nellie (skippered by Steve Nowell) sampled sole and plaice in August and September off Devon and along the coast to the Scillies. One operated open and chain mat gear on soft ground, and both worked chain mat gear on rough ground. Open gear out-fished chain mat gear on the soft ground (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Example of a comparison of relative catches at age from FSP and commercial landings: Lady T Emile, VIIe sole, catches from open, chain mat and commercial landings.

Sole and plaice were most abundant south of Devon (Figure 1 - PDF, 104KB), but of the bycatch, monk were more abundant in deeper water offshore and from Penzance to the Scillies, and lemon sole, small megrim and small hake from Penzance to the Scillies. Gadoid catches were sporadic.

Catch rates, and size composition of the flatfish were comparable with those of the Cefas research vessel Corystes (Figure 1 - PDF, 104KB). However, the FSP was able to sample a much larger number of stations.

The European Commission has proposed a recovery plan for western Channel sole. This project confirmed other research surveys which have found reasonable numbers of larger fish, suggesting the stock is in a better state than other sole stocks not subject to recovery plans.

Western anglerfish and hake

Newlyn beamers Twilight III (skippered by Matthew Watson) and Billy Rowney (skippered by Steve Moseley) fished chain mat gear, over the Bristol Channel, Western Channel and into the Western Approaches. Trips were in September and November, and target species were monk, megrim, and hake.

Catches of megrim and anglerfish (Figure 2 - PDF, 100KB) were good, especially on the western grounds. Catches of sole, lemon sole and plaice were modest, and a few haddock, whiting and small hake appeared sporadically. Larger anglerfish tended to be offshore.

Over 200 hauls were sampled. Detailed information was obtained on the sizes of the target species, and the bycatches of different species. RV Corystes also worked in the area, and again catch rates were comparable (Figure 2 - PDF, 100KB).

The survey helped to confirm other industry information on the abundance of anglerfish.

Western cod

Our Josie Grace (skippered by Scott Wharton) fished a twin rig in the Bristol Channel and around the Trevose grounds in spring.

Spawning cod were caught in low numbers, but there were often good catches of haddock and whiting. However, many catches were of undersized fish. The gear also caught plaice and sole on occasions.

Some of the cod were tagged with internal data storage tags to help understand the migration of fish in this area.

North East coast cod

The Abbey Lee (skippered by John Hall) and Emulator (skippered by Shaun Crowe) fished 135 hauls from Flamborough to North Shields in August and September 2003. Fishing was on rough ground with an 80mm codend.

They had good catch rates of 30-45cm cod near the coast north of Flamborough, but poorer rates offshore and to the north. Most cod were of the 2001 year class and were feeding on herring or herring spawn. In general the vessels mainly caught only one or two age groups of young immature cod.

The effect on catch rates of using a 120mm mesh net was measured, but gave conflicting results, presumably because of the relatively few samples.

Farn Deeps Nephrops

Two Nephrops trawlers, Still Waters (skippered by Darren Senior) and Luc (skippered by Dennis Clarke), fished in spring on the Farn Deeps grounds. They used commercial Nephrops trawls fitted with liners to retain smaller Nephrops. This area was surveyed several times by another Nephrops trawler a few years ago, but in late autumn. The primary aim was to compare the present and past distribution and abundance of Nephrops and whitefish bycatch.

Nephrops, mainly 19-49mm carapace length, were most abundant on the seaward side of the survey area, in contrast to the broad distribution found in earlier surveys. Catch rates of Nephrops were lower than observed previously, probably because this survey was carried out at the end of the season.

Fish bycatch rates were monitored for whiting, haddock, plaice, lemon sole and cod. Whiting was widespread, but the other species tended to be close inshore, where Nephrops were least abundant. Any cod caught were juveniles.

Northern North Sea saithe

Two autumn cruises were made with Farnella (skippered by John Musgrave) along the shelf edge west, north and east of Shetland, using a trawl with 110mm codend.

Saithe of 40-60cm were widespread but patchy, with best catch rates made east of Shetland. Catch rates exceeded 4 tonnes/hour, but were mainly of young saithe. Larger saithe were in deeper water.

Bycatch rates of cod and haddock were measured. Catches of 30-60cm haddock were modest, though there was one big haul on the western shelf edge, and a few others in the northern North Sea. Fewer cod were caught, but all were of marketable fish.

Irish Sea cod

Spawning cod were targeted in the eastern and western Irish Sea in 2004. The northern Irish semi-pelagic vessel Benaiah IV (skippered by Dennis Jones) was equipped with a 100mm codend and 200mm lifting bag fished in the western Irish Sea cod box. The Fleetwood otter trawler Kiroan (skippered by Philip Dell) fished the eastern side with a single high-lift Boris trawl and 80mm codend.

In both areas catches of cod were dominated by three year olds of the 2001 year class. In the western Irish Sea the gear caught few undersized fish, and there was no cod discarding.

The eastern Irish Sea had running males and ripe females, supporting planktonic evidence for spawning aggregations of cod in this area.

Deepwater species

The Farnella (skippered by John Musgrave) sampled some deep water fish with a high-lift multi-purpose rockhopper trawl. Deepwater sharks and spawning blue ling were the target, fished mainly around the Hatton Bank, Rosemary Bank and Little Bank.

Catches and size distributions were obtained for blue ling, black scabbardfish, roundnose grenadier, Portuguese dogfish, and a range of other sharks and dogfish. Many of the blue ling were in spawning condition.

Although the trip was too short to provide more than a snapshot of limited areas, spawning blue ling were nevertheless widespread, and the data collected supplemented Cefas’s limited database on deepwater species.

Results to date

Joe Horwood said that survey results had already been fruitfully used.

• Reports have been presented to the ICES Northern Shelf Working Group, which assesses Irish Sea stock, and to the ICES Southern Shelf Working Group.

• The size distribution of VIIe sole has supported our contention that the stock does not warrant draconian action.

• The size distribution of VIIh, j, k sole indicates that cuts in TAC may not have been necessary.

• It is clear that the Irish Sea cod fishery is currently heavily reliant on the 2001 year class.

• Cod are continuing to spawn in the eastern Irish Sea, which was formerly subject to a closed area.

• The bycatch data show that the pout fisheries require careful monitoring.

However, the value of the new material will increase in time as catch rates and sizes can be compared with the 2003 baseline.

Fisheries science partnership 2004

Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw has confirmed that the partnership will continue in 2004. He said: "I welcome the results of the first year's Fisheries Science Partnership. The partnership has enabled fishermen and scientists to work together to improve our knowledge of fish stocks.

“The report from the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit recommended that fishermen should be much more closely involved in fisheries science. The partnership is an example of this in practice. I am delighted to confirm that the government are providing a further £1 million of funding for the partnership this year.”

Defra, Cefas and the NFFO have discussed how the partnership will build on the success of the first year. Defra will announce shortly the projects for this year’s programme.

Further details of the FSP can be obtained from the NFFO or Cefas.