FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL 86, NO 1 



black drum catches. Operational efficiency of 

 commercial fishermen should improve with less 

 handling of nontarget species. Mortality of non- 

 target fishes would decrease because they would 

 not be caught and subsequently handled. For red 

 drum and spotted seatrout that are caught, sur- 

 vival would be high for those released back into 

 the water. Survival of released red drum caught 

 on trotlines in winter and summer and of spotted 

 seatrout in winter was 100^^ (Martin et al. 1987). 

 About 509^ of the spotted seatrout died in summer 

 cage studies; but few commercial trotlines are 

 fished during this period (TPWD unpubl. data). 

 Thus, the goal of reducing the catch of nontarget 

 species and reducing mortality due to trotlines 

 can be achieved with minimal impact on the com- 

 mercial fishermen. 



Interactions between bay system and the other 

 three factors for some species probably reflect dif- 

 ferences in relative abundance. Fewer fish were 

 available to be caught in upper Laguna Madre 

 than in lower Laguna Madre (Crowe et al. 1986). 

 The effects of bait and season on trotline catches 

 cannot be determined in bay systems where the 

 fish abundance approaches zero. 



No spotted seatrout were caught on crab bait on 

 bottom in either bay; but they were caught on all 

 baits on top in the lower Laguna Madre leading to 

 the significant second-order interaction of posi- 

 tion X bay X bait. This condition was not unex- 

 pected because spotted seatrout are predomi- 

 nately sight feeders (Vetter 1977), and might not 

 take baits on bottom as readily as baits suspended 

 in the water column. 



Crab and shrimp were more effective baits than 

 oleander leaves for all four species. No other gen- 

 eralizations could be made concerning baits and 

 seasons. Selection of crab or shrimp as the bait of 

 choice for reducing bycatch while maximizing 

 black drum catch is unclear because catch rates 

 for black drum and red drum were greater on crab 

 than shrimp, especially in winter. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



We would like to thank all Laguna Madre field 

 personnel who diligently collected the samples. 

 Tom Heffernan, Ed Hegen, Lynn Benefield, 

 Maury Ferguson, and Tony Maciorowski re- 

 viewed the manuscript. 



LITERATURE CITED 



Anonymous 



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