The cod fishery may be going to pot. But in this case, it’s a good thing: at the March Fishermen’s Forum in Rockport, scientists and gear manufacturers unveiled experimental gear that could improve fishing, reduce bycatch and help conserve regional stocks, including a pot to catch codfish.
Michael Pol, a biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, is working on a project to determine if cod will be attracted to a wire mesh pot resembling a large lobster trap. The pot has many advantages over bottom trawling or gillnetting for the rebuilding New England species, Pol said.
“It will eliminate mortality. If the fish are too small, you can release them. If there are too many, you can reset the pot and harvest them later. So far, we’ve had zero mortality.”
Fishermen have an 800-lb. limit on cod now, but if they catch more, they must throw them back, dead. “We tried the pots in December and January and got nothing,” said Pol. “The big question is, what will we get in May and June?”
The pots have been tested successfully in Fortune Bay and Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. “They were catching commercial quantities, beating the gillnets. But there are times when the cod won’t go in the pots, even in Newfoundland,” he said.”We don’t know why — do we tinker with the pot or wait for the season? There could be nothing we could do to modify the pot. I might all depend on the time.”
One pot is a 6 ½- by 6 ½- ft. rigid design. Another variety tested in Newfoundland is the same size, but collapsible to 6 inches high. Researchers plan some modifications to the pot, based on tests so far. Pol said the trap is perfect to harvest fish for the live market. “We’ve never killed a fish in the pot. we’ve tagged every one and have gotten some back.” Phil Walsh of Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, worked on the cod pots for five years and monitored cod pot experiments in Alaska six years ago. Huge cod traps, much larger than the pots and constructed from nets, were used in inshore Newfoundland for generations as a passive, fixed method of harvesting cod.
“The pot is a responsible fishing method, It reduces sea turtle by catch,” said Walsh. “It’s better than gillnets, In Newfoundland, we destroy a lot of fish because weather keeps fishermen from getting back to the nets.”Newfoundland scientists put pots on five vessels in a research fishery in 2003 and 2004. “We knew we could catch cod, but we wanted to see if we could sustain it throughout the year,” said Walsh. “Some had no catch rates and some were phenomenal. Certain times of the year, they don’t feed. They have to be hungry.”
The Newfoundland traps caught up to 500 lbs. of fish per trap in 2005, and averaged 431 lbs. over 23 “soaks” in 2004, proving the pots will catch commercial amounts of cod, although catch rates vary tremendously by season and researchers hope to document the differences.
Despite the advantages of traps to the quality of the captured species, fixed gear that requires lines is now problematic, since the National Marine Fisheries Service is poised to issue new regulations to protect whales. Floating lines that risk entangling endangered whales are expected to be banned. Kathleen Reardon of the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) explained the workings of a pot intended to catch Jonah crabs (Cancer borealis). The experimental crab trap resembles a lobster trap with an oblong entrance head, with vents designed to allow lobsters to escape the trap.”Using the body dimensions of the crab, the design maximizes the escape of lobsters and minimizes the escape of a large crab,” Reardon said. DMR was issued an Experimental Fishery Permit to test the trap, designed by Stonington fisherman Brent Oliver. “The challenge now,” Reardon said, “will be the whale regulations.”