348 



Fishery Bulletin 100(2) 



varied greatly in other studies. This variation has been at- 

 tributed to temporal and spatial diversity in size and spe- 

 cies composition of the finfish and shrimp within a trawl- 

 ing area; changes in bottom substrate; water depth; BRD 

 type, placement, and size; trawl dynamics; and speed, and 

 duration of tow (Branstetter, 1997; Fuls and McEachron"^). 



1" Fuls, B. E., and L. W. McEachron. 1998. Evaluation of 

 bycatch reduction devices in Aransas Bay during the 1997 

 spring and fall commercial bay-shrimp season. Corpus Christi 

 Bay National Estuary Program Publication CCBNEP-33, 6300 

 Ocean Drive. Corpus Christi. TX 78412, 33 p. 



Although most of the nets tested in these other studies 

 were considerably larger than the nets tested in our study, 

 some of these attributes probably contributed to the varia- 

 tion that we observed. In addition, and most notably, the 

 efficiency of our BRDs was greatly reduced when large 

 numbers of horseshoe crabs were captured or when large 

 numbers of spiny fishes became entangled in the nets. 



Although the number and weight of finfish captured 

 were greatly reduced in the FFE-equipped nets, finfish 

 bycatch reduction rates were even higher with the nets 

 equipped with the EMF, particularly the 17-m net, which 

 had the highest overall reduction rate of all BRD and net- 



