Productivity of bottom-liners fisheries off Southeast Brazil

Abstract

This paper deals with the fishery productivity of the bottom-liners fleet operating off Southeast Brazil, according to boat size, number of lines per fisherman and number of hooks per line, for knowing the arrangement that makes possible the attainment of larger catches. The data were collected from the logbooks, related to fishing operations conducted in 1979 -1985. The bottom-liners were grouped into two size categories: small- with less than 20 tons of gross tonnage and maximum
totallength of15 meters; large- with more than 20 tons of gross tonnage and maximum totallength of22 meters. The catches were made with bottom handlines, with the fisherman remaining on board or on a caique, with 15-20 caiques per boat. Each fisherman works with one or two lines, with variable number (4, 5 or 20) of hooks per line. The higher productivity of the large liners derives from the greater number of fishing days and/or fishermen per trip, there being no influence of the boat
size on the catch per fisherman-day. Irrespective of the boat size, the higher fishing productivity is obtained when each fisherman works with two lines of 5 hooks each.