Studies On Catch Rates Of Bottom Trawlers In Qatar Waters, Arabian Gulf

Abstract

Data pertaining to catch, effort, time, space, landing, commercial value, by-catch and some environmental parameters covering the period from 1983 to 1988 were used in this regard. The results conformed that; the CPUE exhibits an increasing trend from relatively shallower to deeper depths, and declines from sandy through muddy-sand to muddy type of bottom, and CPUE in waters less than 20 fathoms deep was lower in summer than in water and the trend was vice verse in deeper water. Higher CPUE values were obtained for the day and full-moon-nights operations than for night and/or moonless-nights ones respectively. The former is higher than the later by about 5.4% to 16.8% with a mean of 11.1%. Effort exerted by QNFC fleet is still below the optimum effort of such fishing grounds and the yield is insignificant in comparison to the biomass. The fishery sector in Qatar can easily assure fish self-sufficiency by increasing fishing effort especially that of QNFC fleet by introducing an added trawler to the present fleet.