NOTE Stone and Dixon: A comparison of catches of Xiphias gladius and other pelagic species with longline gear 
213 
Figure 3 
Monofilament nylon (A) and tarred multifilament nylon ( B ) gangions used for ten pelagic longline sets con- 
ducted off Georges Bank from 22 July to 2 August 1999. 
observed captures by gangion type differed 
significantly from an expected 1:1, with the 
monofilament nylon outperforming the tarred 
multifilament nylon gangions for 6 of 8 spe- 
cies (Table 2). The catch ratio by gangion type 
(i.e. monofilament versus multifilament) for 
all species combined was 2:1 and was highest 
for yellowfin tuna (9:1) and lowest for mako 
shark ( 1.5:1). 
Discussion 
The purpose of our analysis was to examine 
differences in pelagic longline catch by spe- 
cies for two different types of gangion and 
was based on the premise that monofila- 
ment nylon gangions currently used by Cana- 
dian pelagic longline fishermen yield higher 
catches than the tarred multifilament nylon 
gangions used in the past. Although only a 
small data set from a limited geographic area 
was available for this analysis, it was appar- 
ent in the case of swordfish and blue shark 
that catches were significantly higher on 
monofilament gangions, which yielded double 
the catch of the multifilament gangions for 
