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International Couneil forthe Exploration of the sea

C.M. 1987/G:21Demersal Fish Committee

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DESCRIPTION OF THE SPANISH LONG-LINER FISHERYIN DIVISION VIIIa,b.

E. de Cärdenas, B. Vi11amor and P. Pereda

Instituto Espanol de OceanograffaApdo 240 Santander

ABSTRACT

This work describes the spanish long-line fleet, fishing in VIII aand VIII b ICES divisions and which have its bases in the Cantabrian Seaports, from Tapia de Casariego to Fuenterrabia. The characteristics of thegear are described and some information is given abo~t the transformationsof others vessels into long-liners; quarterly catch composition; evolutionof the catches ,and the individual mean weigth in the catches for trawl and1ong-l i ne from 1980 to 1986 as we 11 as 1ength di stri but ion for 1ong-l i nein the same period.

RESUME

Ce document decrit la flottille de palangre Spagnole, qui peche dansles divisions Vllla,b du I.C.E.S. et qui ont son port d'attache aux portsde la mer Cantabrique, depuis Tapia de Casariego jusqu1a Fuenterrabia. Ondecrit l' engi n et on donne 11i nformat i on des transformat ions dlautresengins en palangre; eomposition des debarquements trimestriels; evolutiondes captures et poids moyens du chalut et du palangre depuis 1980 jusqu1ä1986; compositions en taille du palangre pour les dernieres annees ettendences de la pecherie.

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I NTRODUCTI ON

The fleet which operates in Vllla,b ICES divisions before 1975 wascomp6sed essentia11y by trawlers ("bakas", "bous", "trios" and "parejas")and some gill-neters. From this year, due to the adoption of Exc1usiveEconomi que Zone (EEZ) of 200 mil es by the EEC member countri es and thefishing 1icences system introduced since 1977, a new situation was createdfor this fleet.

Four alternatives appeared:

1) One part of the fleet, specia11y the older units, was withdrawn.

2) Other part was constitued in joint ventures, registering theboats under fl ags of the EEC countri es, that a11 owed them theaccess to the grounds without problems. 4It

3) Some of the vesse1s changed thei r fi shi ng habits transformi ngthei r gears _to 1ong-1 i ne systems, because of the advantageousequi va1ence of the 1icences for 1ong-1 i ne unti 1 1982,the highyie1d obtained, the better, qua1ity and higher price of thecatches comparate to those taken by trawlers.

4) Final1y, the remaining fleet continued working as before.

In the last meetings of the Hake Working Group it wasreccommended to make a detail ed descri pti on of the changes - suffered bythe fleet fishing this species, because it cou1d imp1icate modificationsin the fishing pattern (Anon., 1986 and 1987).

The evolution of the trawl fleet is described in Cärdenas et a1.(1987). The present paper has as object i ve to fulfil thi s requi rement,describing the transformations of the fleet and giving the main featuresof this new gear in the area.

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MATERIAL AND METHODS

All the fishing ports with lang-liners working in EEC waters were

visited.

2356718

<46 r-__.....;9i-__-;9r-__-T7 -r6 T5 .;.-.__.....;3~--...:2~-...._.._...

45CANTABRIAN SEA

0bll~....a"'IIIt.>

~

'C co.,4-4

~........

Cl. >'" <

'"'

e\

.3 .3

Fig. 1. Cantabrian Sea Ports (N. Spain) base of the Spanish long-linefleet which works in ICES divisions Vllla,b.

The data utilized have been: a) characteristics of the vessels(Horse power, GRT, transformation year, systems for navi gation andlocation of fishing grounds; b) characteristics of the gear (no. of hooks,crew, bait, etc.); c) catch composition and seasona1ity from Ondarrroa,Santander and Avi1es of the year 1986; d) length distributions from 1981to 1986 of the target speci~of this gear (data from Hake Working Group).

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DESCRIPTION OF THE GEAR

The gear utilized by this fleet is called "piedra-bola". Thislong-line is directed to hake. The technical characteristics can be seenin the figure 2.

1

30 hooks between "pledra" and "bola"

Length between hooks: 3.5 - 4 m.

Length of "pipios" 1.B m.

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Fig. 2. The "piedra-bola" gear. (Gonzalez et al., 1986).

Usually the hooks utilized are of Mustand type (no. 2/0 and 3/0)••They are bai ted with frozen sardine.

Tota1 number of hooks di sp1ayed to vary between 10000 and 14000units depending on the crew and size of vessel.

The gear is released from the stern at sunfall and raised at sunrisewith the aid of a winch.

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RESULTS

The 10ng-1ine fleet is formed by three kind of vesse1s: a)transformed trawlers; b) fit purse-seiner; c) original long-liners. In thetab1e I the characteristics of the fleet are described.

ORIGIN "GRT NO. AVERAGE YEAR }:. HP l:GRTGEAR OF TRANSFORM•

PURSE SEINE 391* 104* 9 3519** 940**

DBAKAD 776 210 28 1982 21725 5882

DBOUD 1100 234 7 1983 7700 1640

• DTRIOD 401 224 2 1982 802 448

LONG-UNE 38* 27* 26 978** 700**\

Tab1e/I. Characteristics of the spanish long-1ine fleet fishing in EEC.*average obtained from apart of the fleet,

**estimated values from averaged values.

In figures 3,4 and 5 the characteristics and transformation by year,HP and GRT are represented. The process started in 1980 and get themaximun in 1981 when a 46% became transformed because of the good yie1dthat the first unities tranformed had obtained, and the suitableequi va1ence of the 1i cences in those days (.33). Si nce that moment theprocess of transformation decreased because of a change in the valuationof the equi va1ence of 1ong-1 i ne 1icence with regard to trawl whi eh wascarrted out in 1983.

The more powered vessel s correspond. toleast powered correspond to "trios" in origin.any trend with respect to the original gears.

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"bous 11 in on g1 n and theThe GRT does not present

•

. 1

1:5

u"~ 111R

O·F

BoA,S

5

1:3 BAKAS • SOUSYEARS

[J TRIOS

Fig. 3. Trawl fleet transformed in the period 1980-1986. ~111

,

\

B !

HU 6"BER

0rB 40A,S •

2

1:3 BAI<AS • BOOSH.P.

D TRIOS

Fig. 4. Distribution of engine power (HP) according on the origin.

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•

•

IZr----------------------.

HU

"BfiorBoATS

8

ii~

!i

Fig. 5. GRT.distribution according on the origin.

Purse-seiners are polyvalent boats which alternate different fishinghabi ts. In the years 76 and 77 some of these boats worked in EEC waterswith gill-nets. Since 1978 this gear was forbiden in those waters. Themeasure affected boats fishing in the Subarea VII (With base in Galiciaports essentialy) and the use of the long-line increased (b-ecause thisgear was compati b1e with the bo~ts and all owed) • Same othertransformations were produced in divisions VIIIa,b, where nine vesse11sare working (6 month by year) actual1y. The other 6 month they fish otherspecies (tunna, anchovy, etc.).

Long-liners, originated from trawler spend all of their fishing timewith that gear and stop their activities when they have not licences.

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Long-liners from the beginning are little boats that work in

di vi si on VII Ia, b four mounth a year and the rest of the year in thedivision VIIIc with long-line, hand-line or "currican" for tunna.

CATCH COMPOSITION OF LONG-LINE

In figure 6 the catch composition is represented quarterly. It has

been obtained from data of Aviles, Santander and Ondarroa ports. In 1986these three ports landed the 69% of the total catch of ~ake for this gearin the division.

first quarter

• Hake71,6 y.Horse l1ack.1,9 y.

m Lingru 1,4 y.m Bib~ 6,3 y.Ii Pollack

5,5 :I.~ Others

14,3 y.

third quarter

• Huke85,4 y.Horse 1'Iacl<.I,S y.

D Ling@ 2,3 y.~ Bib~ 3,3 y.e Pollack

,1 1­E§lOthersE3 7,4 y.

second quarter

• Hake I83,9 y. IHorse Hack.

,2 y. Irn Lingm ,6 y.B8 Bibg,g 3,8 y.n PollackU ,3 y.~Otherse:;:j 12,1 y.

forth quarter

• Hake41,3 y.HoPse I'Iack.

3,1 y. i8 Ling1111 ,"1 y.~ Bib~ 9,1 y.lffl Polla.ck IlI:iI 12,7 y.~Others i

~'2~

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Fig. 6. Catch composition of long-line.

The target spec;es ;s the hake; ;t represents about 75% of the total

catch for this fleet along the year.

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EVOLUTION OF THE CATCHES

In table II and figure 7, the evolution of the anual catches oftrawlers and long-liners in division VIIIa,b is represented for the period1981 to 1986.

YEARS TRAWL lONG-lINE TOTAl

Tabla 11. Evolution of the spanish hake catchesin divisions VIlla, b (in tonnes).Data from the Hake working group.

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1980198119821983198419851986

84851097482706128

71725175

258930445756655656185536

147071107414018140261268412790

10711

Data correspondi ng to. the year 1980 are not separated by gearsbecause there was not available information enough.

14000

12000

10000

TOTAL

4000

2000

6000VlQ)

..cu+.J10U

VlQ)

§ 8000o+.J-•

1980 1981 1982. 1983 1984 1985 1986'YEARS

Fig. 7. Evolution of the catches af.hake. Data fram the Hake WarkingGraup.

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·-1As we can observ~, the catches of 10ng-1iners grew quick1y between

,

the years 1982 and 1984, meanwhi1e those of trawlers went down in the sameperiod. Both of them got stability at the same level since 1984.

abundancesThe

1987) •fleet.

general trend of the catches is to decrease, but thein the area da not present th i s tendence {Cärdenas et a1.,

It could be traduced in a drecrease in the effort of the Spanish

LENGTH DISTRIBUTION BY GEARS

Length composition of the gears IIbous 11 & IIbakas 11 and IItri os 11 &

IIparejasll in divisions VIIla,b for the year 1986 is represented in figure8. The data had been presented to the Hake Working Group.

The mi nimum 1ength in the catches i s 10 cm for "bous 11 & IIbakas 11, 20 •cm for IItrios ll & "parejas ll , and 30 cm for the lang-liners. Likewise themaximum percentage of catch falls into the 15 cm class for the first gear,

I

35 for the second one and for the 1ast one those 1enghts are 'scatteredbetween 35 and 50 cm. Therefore, any transfer of effort from trawl to

.,,':

10ng-line will be a profit for the explotation pattern. -

EVOLUTION OF THE LENGTH DISTRIBUTION OF THE LONG-LINE CATCHES

Fo110wing the evolution of the 1ength composition of the hake,catched. with long-line in the studied area, from the year 1981 to 1986,there i s not observed any tendence to an i ncrease in the exp1otati on ofthe younger individuals {Fig. 9}.

The evolution of the mean weigth does not show, either, any tendece 4Itto this increase {Tab1e III}.

YEARW(k)

1981

1.551982

1.001983

0.931984

1.151985

1.401986

1.17

Table 111. Mean weigth of the catches of hake_ in the period 1981-1986{long-1ine fleet in division VIlla, b}.

The mean weight in the last year of the studied period is near tothe average of the mean weigth of the period (1.2 k.).

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"baka"&"bou"

50 80 70' . 80 : . 99 1988. UJ 2a 30

18

%

3B

cm

%

3B

18

r--

...-- "trios"&"parejas"~

~

~r-- t--

11I . ....- I r t-t I -' I . I

19· 20 30 50 80 70 80 90 100

cm

%

30 long-liners

28

10

10 29 30 49 50 f'0 79 89' 99 umcm

Fig. 8. Length distribution by gears for 1986 (Anon., 1987).

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r-- -I--

I--1. - f-- ......-

I--

• . , , r Ih-, _J

• 1• 211 Sd .ce 58 81 111 BI 91 1.Length cm.

Fig. 9. Length distribution of the catches of long-liners from 1981 to1986. (Hake Working Group, 1982-87).

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1980 to 1984,keepi ng thi s

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CONCLUSIONS

1) A procedure of transformation, trawlers to long-1ine, started in 1980in the division Vllla,b.

2) This process reached a maximun in the year 1981 when 46% of the actua1fleet was transformed.

3) The target species of this gear is the hake (75% of the 1andings in1986)

4) The 1engths of the hake catched by 10ng-1iners is sensib1y bigger thanone taken by trawlers.

5) The percentage of catches of 1ong-1 i ne i ncrease fromreaching a maximum of about a 50% of the total catch,level unti1 the end of this period. ,

\6) The 1ength di stri buti on of the catches of thi s gear for the peri od

1981-1986 does not show any decreasing trend. Besides this, the meanweigth in the catch was in 1986 c10se to the the average of the meanweights for the period.

7) Total Spani sh catches in the area show a decreas i ng trend for theperiod studied, imputable to a decrease in the fishing effort.

8) The four last conc1usions suggest that these transformations have meanta benefit for the explotation pattern.

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REFEREMCES

AMOM., 1981. "Lista oficial de buques de Espana." Direcciön General dela Marina Mercante.

....

ANON., 1982. Report of the Working Group on assessment of hake stocks.ICES, CM 1982/assess. :14.

ANON. , 1983. Report of the Working Group on assessment of hake stocks. --ICES, CM 1983/assess.:20.

ANOM. , 1986. Report of the Working Group on assessment of hake stocks.-

ICES, CM 1986/assess.:l.

ANON., 1987. Report of the Worki ng Group on assessment of hake -stocksICES, CM 1987/assess.:l.

CARDENAS, E., VILLAMOR, B. and PEREDA, P., 1987. "Evolution of abundanceindices in the ICES subarea VI and division VIII a, b for theperiod 1973-1986.". I.C.E.S., CM 1987/G:22.

GONZALEZ, s. et al.,

Cantabria.Servicio de

1986. liLa pesca en Cantabria." Gobierno deConsejeria de Ganaderia, Agricultura y Pesca.Actividades Pesqueras.

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