A study of catches in a fleet of "ghost-fishing" pots

Pots are a form of trap used to capture fishes, crustaceans, or gastropod m ollusks. Occasionally, these traps are lost at sea, where they have the pot ential to fish for many years because they are constructed of robust manmad e materials. The present study quantified the mortality and number of anima ls caught by a fleet of crustacean pots (12 pots) that were set on the seab ed and left to fish continually in a manner designed to simulate ghost-fish ing off the coast of Wales, UK. The bait originally placed in the pots was consumed within 28 days of the beginning of the experiment. Spider crabs an d brown crabs dominated the catches within the pots throughout the experime nt. The CPUE of spider and brown crabs declined as an inverse function of t ime and reached a minimum between 125 to 270 days after initial deployment in August 1995. After this period, CPUE increased again, although it did no t attain the rates associated with the beginning of the experiment. The fle et of twelve pots caught a minimum of 7.08 spider and 6.06 brown crabs per pot per year and killed a minimum of 6.06 brown cl abs and 0.44 lobsters pe t pot per year. Other species caught in the traps included velvet swimming crab. lobster, ballan wrasse, dogfish, and triggerfish. The pots continued to catch animals into the second year of the experiment. These results sugg est that pots have the potential to fish for extended periods. The wider us e of biodegradable escape panels is recommended because currently there is no national legislation in the UK to enforce such escape measures.