Pelagic trawl:
When trawling takes place in the water column or in mid-water between the seabed and the surface, it is
referred to as mid-water or pelagic trawling. Pelagic trawls target fish swimming, usually in shoals, in the water column i.e. pelagic species. These include seabass, mackerel, Alaska pollack, redfish, herring and pilchards for example. Their effectiveness relies on traversing a considerable volume of water, and consequently nets are larger than bottom trawls and require a large vertical and horizontal mouth opening to provide net stability and capture large shoals of fish. The length of time the net is towed through the water is shorter than in bottom trawling in order to capture the shoals of fish the net passes through. To handle the large amounts of fish, pumps are used to transfer the catch from the cod-end to the boat.
Beam trawl:
In this type of trawl, the mouth or opening of the net is kept open by a beam, which is mounted at each end on guides or skids which travel along the seabed. The trawls are adapted and made more effective by attaching tickler chains (for sand or mud) or heavy chain matting (for rough, rocky ground) depending on the type of ground being fished. These drag along the seabed in front of the net, disturbing the fish in the path of the trawl, causing them to rise from the seabed into the oncoming net. Electrified ticklers, which are less damaging to the
seabed, have been developed but used only experimentally. Work is also being carried out to investigate whether square mesh panels (see below) fitted in the ‘belly’ or lower panel of the net can reduce the impact of beam trawling on communities living on or in the seabed. Modern beam trawls range in size from 4 to 12 m (weighing up to 7.5 tonnes in air) beam length, depending on the size and power of the operating vessel
Fish avaliabity this month will be :
Black Bream /Pink Bream
Black bream stocks currently appear to be in a healthy state, however there is a lack of stock assessment and adequate management for the species. The species is moderately vulnerable to fishing in terms of growth rate and fecundity but the species spawning behavioural traits make the species especially vulnerable to bottom trawling.
Intresting fact with this fish is it born sequential hermaphrodites which means its born one sex then as the size and shape changes so does the sex!! ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_hermaphroditism )
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