558 
Fishery Bulletin 95(3), 1997 
Jjjiian 
500 
blue crab 
250 - 
Length class (mm) 
Length class (mm) 
Figure 3 
Length-frequency distributions of abundant species collected in control nets for the different areas. Note that length-class data 
are in mm, except those for catfish, which are in cm. 
ences of brown shrimp and white shrimp differed for 
the BRD’s (Table 3); fewer brown shrimp tended to 
be caught with the BRD nets. 
Differences between areas and seasons 
Although the Authement-Ledet BRB caught 18% 
fewer shrimp than the control nets overall, losses in 
Lake Barre were low and statistically nonsignificant 
(Table 4). Fish reduction was consistent across the 
areas for this BRD. The Lake Arthur BRD had a fairly 
consistent reduction of shrimp and fish across all 
areas but had the lowest shrimp catch difference in 
Lake Borgne and had poorer fish reductions in 
Calcasieu Lake. The Cameron BRD had the highest 
fish reduction in Lake Borgne; however, this was 
accompanied by the highest shrimp loss. This BRD 
lost the fewest shrimp in Lake Barre. The Eymard 
BRD caught more shrimp than the control net in all 
areas and reduced fish biomass in all areas, by as 
much as 35% in Lake Borgne. 
Mean water depths and salinities differed between 
Lake Borgne and the other two areas. Lake Borgne 
(2.7 ±0.64 m) was slightly deeper than Lake Barre 
(1.9 ±0.34 m) and Calcasieu Lake (1.5 ±0.27 m). Mean 
salinities during sampling were 9.6 ±2.9%e (Lake 
Borgne), 22.5 ±2.8%c (Lake Barre), and 20.6 ±5.2%£> 
(Calcasieu Lake). 
There were some slight differences in BRD perfor- 
mance between seasons (Table 5), reflecting differ- 
