fishes which are not yet mature move little or not at all* Between 



55 and 62° n,, latitude between the British csoast and 4° «», longitude, the 



haddock may be found everjrwhere i the oxdor year groups do not go as 



far as the younger ones do. Eight year-old "and older fish are to be 



found principally on the spawning grounds o 



The distribution of the young brood is not the same every year. 

 In general it may be said that the young haddock are found at the 

 British east coast and in the largest concentrations at the Shetlands 

 and near the Scottish and north English coast (see figure 8)o In 

 these fairly large areas, where the younger haddock are concentrated, 

 3-year-old and older-fishes are also fairly numerous » 



This phenomenon, although the younger and older fish form 

 separate schools in the same area, makes it undesirable to protect 

 the young haddock by closing certain areas for the fisheryo The 

 opportunity to make good catches fairly near home would be taken 

 away from the fisherman and this would be a heavy blow, especially 

 for the smaller British fishermano Moreover, the area which one 

 would have to close is so large that it is a question whether it 

 is possible to police it efficiently and if the advantage to b« had 

 by taking this measure would weigh against the high costs of control. 

 It seems more rational to find a measure which would make the fishing 

 in those areas as unharmful as possible for the young haddock* 

 From our point of view this is possible by enforcing a large 

 minimum mesh width combined with a large minimum size for the fisho 



If we observe the selection curves in figure 5 it appears that 

 even with a net with cod-end mesh of 8 3/4 centimeters, a fairly 

 large number of fish of 21 centimeters will still be caughto 

 Therefore, it would be commendable to use an even wider net for 

 haddock. As far as we caji see this would not be objectionabl<j 

 for the larger and faster trawlers. The smaller, slower vessels 

 of the coast fisheries would lose fairly large amounts of sole and 

 whiting with cod ends of more than 8 centimeter mesh widths. Much 

 could be said for a regulation that gave the smaller ships a 

 smaller minimian mesh width that the larger ones, if it were not 

 that this would make the control of the regulation appreciably 

 more difficult. 



Therefore, we would advise the adoption of one uniform, minimum 

 mesh width of 80 millimeters for the entire Worth Sea. Efforts 

 should be made by publication and eventually by enlarging the experi- 

 ments so that the owners of haddock boats will fit their ships out 

 with wide-meshed nets without being forced to do so. This will turn 

 out to be in their own interest. It is not improbable that it will 

 also be to the interest of the coastal fishermen to use a wider mesh. 



S9 



