Bigeye tuna, Parathunnus sibi (Temminck and Schlegel) 



Skipjack, Katsuwonus pelamis (Linnaeus) 



Albacore, Germo alalunga (Bonnaterre) 



Lancet fish, Alepisaurus sp. 



Barracuda, Sphyraena barracuda (Walbaum) 



Table 1. --Period and general area of POFI longline fishing in the 

 equatorial Pacific, 1953 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 



So large a venture could hardly have been accomplished without 

 the cooperation of most of the staff of POFI including the officers and 

 crews of our research vessels. Miss Jean S. Hailing assisted in proc- 

 essing the catch records. The temperature sections were prepared by 

 T. S. Austin and the writers. 



DESCRIPTION OF GEAR AND OPERATIONAL METHODS 



Descriptions of the longline gear used by POFI have appeared in 

 previous reports (Murphy and Shomura 1953a, b, Niska, 1953) and may 

 be summarized as follows. One unit of gear, called a basket, has 

 1, 260 feet of mainline and six 88-foot branch lines (droppers) attached 

 to the mainline at 30-fathom intervals. Several baskets are joined to 

 make up a set, the entire set being buoyed with floats at basket junc- 

 tures and at the ends. Fishing at subsurface levels is accomplished by 

 using 10-fathom lines between mainlines and floats and by setting the 

 mainline slack so that it will sag in the water. To this end, the 1, 260 

 feet of mainline is set in about 900 linear feet. 



