Catch and species composition with some different traps by depth in the deep-water of the East Sea

Abstract

The investigation for the catch and species composition in the deep sea of the East Sea was done to search marine organisms using some kinds of traps with small commercial fishing vessel near Goseong, Korea from 2008 to 2009. The experiments was carried out with some different traps at the depth of 200m, 400m, 700m and 1,000m. In 2008, the amount of catch with rectangular, cone and drum net traps was 91.4kg with twelve trips and the proportion of catch with rectangular and cone traps was high. Dominant species caught were Aniwan whelk (57%), snow crab (12%), hunchback sculpin (7%) and red snow crab (5%). The catch of Aniwan whelk was done well with rectangular and cone traps at the depth of 700-1,000m. Snow crab was mainly caught with rectangular and cone traps at the shallower depth of 200m, while red snow crab caught a lot with cone trap at the deeper depth of 700m. In 2009, the amount of catch with rectangular, cone and round traps was 92.4kg with nine trips. The proportion of catch with round trap was higher than that with cone trap. Dominant species caught were snow crab (67.1%), Aniwan whelk (14.8%) and northern shrimp (9.8%). Snow crab was caught well with round trap at the depth less than 400m.