660 
Fishery Bulletin 95(4), 1997 
cape trawls (see also Briggs, 1992; Fonteyne and 
M’Rabet, 1992; Broadhurst and Kennedy, 1994, 1995, 
1996; Broadhurst et al., 1996) while maintaining 
catches of commercially important species. By con- 
ducting independent experiments on different ves- 
sels across four ports over a range of fishing condi- 
tions and catches, we have also provided informa- 
tion on the relative performance of the composite- 
panel throughout the full operational range of the 
NSW oceanic prawn-trawl fishery and have docu- 
mented, for the first time, a significant increase in 
the catch of targeted prawns with this design. 
The composite-panel codend was most effective in 
excluding large quantities of those discarded species 
that are relatively fusiform and of a size small enough 
to pass through the square-meshes. Species such as 
