Epsilon Open Archive

The Institute of Marine Research is responsible for the trawl survey in the Skagerrak and the Kattegat areas of the North Sea. This survey is conducted twice annually, in quarters 1 and 3 and uses the French bottom trawl GOV as standard gear.

During this survey a total of 45 valid hauls were towed, 26 hauls in the Skagerrak and 19 in the Kattegat. This year two experimental hauls of reduced fishing duration was performed accompanied by two so called “zero hauls”, the latter carried out in order to identify possible catches during the shooting and the hauling procedure.

In all, 6.9 tonnes of herring, 6.4 tonnes of sprat and 160 kg of cod were caught. The herring catch was somewhat lower than last year, the largest fraction being the 0year-old fish in the Kattegat. Sprat showed a large increase dominated by the 1group in the Kattegat whereas cod catches reached an all-time low with very few recruits in both areas. Biological data was collected on clupeids and gadoids as well as some flatfish. In total 3 712 fish from 11 species were sampled for age and maturity determination.