COMMERCLA.L FISHERIES REVIEW 



Vol. 28, No. 7 



THE FISHERY 



FLEET AND LOCATION OF GROUNDS : The industrial fish fishery is prosecuted by ap- 

 proximately 80 shrimp-trawler type boats from 32 to 85 feet in length, operating in sounds 

 and coastal ocean waters from depths of 1 to 21 fathoms, from Wimble Shoals north of Cape 

 Hatter as southward to Swansboro Inlet. 



Fig. 1 - Double -rigged shrimp trawlers operating in coastal ocean waters near Beaulort inlet, Worth Carolma. 



CATCH AND PROCESSING : Throughout the year three dehydrating plants and one freez- 

 ing plant operate in two North Carolina coastal counties. During the months of March through 

 May the amount of industrial fish processed decreases because the season of the winter-trawl 

 fishery ends in March and the shrimping season begins in mid-May. In 1962, the industrial 

 fish catch totaled 8,064,968 pounds, 91 percent of which was processed into fish meal for use 

 in poultry feed, 2 percent into pet food, and 7 percent frozen for feed on fur farms and for 

 crab-pot bait. In 1964, the total was 11,202,895 pounds, 90 percent; 2 percent, and 8 percent 

 respectively, was processed as above. 



HANDLING OF FISH : In trawling operations the net is brought aboard, emptied on deck, 

 and the catch culled for undesirable material (seashells, large sharks and skates, and de- 

 bris), shoveled into the fish hold, and iced. Most vessels return to port at the end of the day 

 when the catch is hoisted from the hold and transported by hand truck or conveyor to the sort- 

 ing table of a fish plant. Here marketable edible fish are sorted according to species and 

 trash fish are discarded into wooden fish boxes. The trash fish are iced and sent by truck to 

 a processing plant. 



Any vessel that has already separated its trash fish from edible species at sea often unloads 

 its trash fish directly at the processing plant. Here the fish are shoveled from the boat to a 

 conveyor running into the plant. 



In the long-haul and pound-net segment of the industrial fish fishery, the catch is culled 

 of undesirable material and iced down in the hold of the relatively small, shrimp-trawler type 

 boat. Later, while still on the fishing grounds, the catch is transferred from the fishing boat 



