FRENCH and DUNN: LOSS FROM HIGH-SEAS GILLNETTING 



Table 17. — Salmon fallouts from gill nets during hauling operations, by vessel and season. 



season of fishing, although slightly more fall- 

 outs were observed during the winter cruises — 

 the season of generally poor weather and rough 

 sea conditions. 



Results of tabulating fallouts by mesh size 

 are given in Table 18. In winter there was not a 

 large difference in fallouts by mesh size with 

 the exception of the 133-mm mesh. In general, 

 however, during winter fishing operations (1967, 

 1969, 1970), the large salmon (predominantly 

 sockeye) that were normally taken by 133-mm 

 mesh nets in the spring were not as numerous 

 as the smaller salmon. In the spring, when 

 maturing salmon predominated in the catches 

 and the catches were primarily in the large 

 meshes (98, 114, and 133 mm), fallouts were 

 mainly from those mesh sizes. Summer catches 

 were primarily of immature salmon (sockeye 

 and chum); the largest number of fallouts were 

 from the small meshes (64 and 83 mm). 



Konda (1966) examined data from Japanese 

 research vessels for 1961-63 and estimated the 

 escapement of salmon from gill nets during 

 haul at 2% , a figure similar to our findings for 

 U.S. research vessels. He further concluded that 

 the number of fish surviving from falling out 

 of the nets at haul is related to the length of 



time needed to haul the nets and that in com- 

 mercial operations most fish will die because of 

 the large number of gill nets fished in a day. 



We concluded from our experimental fishing 

 that the number of fallouts was small in rela- 

 tion to the number of fish hauled aboard the 

 vessels and that there was little difference in 

 percentage of fallouts by size of vessel. 



If our findings are comparable to the catch 

 and fallout of a large high-seas gill net fleet and 

 unless remedial action is taken to retrieve lost 

 fish, a sizeable number of salmon would be lost 

 by the fleet over a season. 



POTENTIAL LOSS OF SALMON 



RESOURCES FROM 



HIGH -SEAS GILLNETTING 



The evidence of loss of salmon from gill nets 

 (due either to dropouts, predation, or both) 

 fished on the high seas in test fishing by research 

 vessels indicated that the potential for substan- 

 tial waste of the resource was due to the har- 

 vesting technique. Although the mortality of 

 salmon escaping from gill nets (dropouts) is 

 not known, there is evidence in the literature 

 that losses are relatively large. Nelson and 



Table 18. — Salmon fallouts according to mesh size. 



' Totals by mesh size are equated to equal number of shackles of each mesh size as 

 fished by season in 1970. 



869 



