FS 316 – UNIT IV

KALAIARASAN MUTHUPANDI
 Parts of long line

• Main line (Ground line)

• Branch line (Snoods or Gangion)

Consist:
• Branch line proper

• Sekiyama (Secondary leader)

• Snood wire (Leader wire)

• The snap

• The hook

• The bait

• Buoys and buoy lines

• Flag poles, light buoys, radio buoys and radar reflectors

Main line (Ground line):
• A long line (rope or monofilaments) which has given the gear its
name and to which the snood and hook are attached at intervals.
• Main line is made of high specific gravity material such as hard-
twisted polyester (PES), polyvinyl alcohol (PVAA), polyamide (PA) and
their combinations.
• Breaking strength of the main line should be at least 10 times the
weight of the largest size of the target species.
• Total length of the main line varies according to fishing ground, scale
of operations and other considerations.
• Each unit of main line may have 5 or more branch lines.

• PA monofilament of 2.5 to 4.0 mm Ø is used as main line.

Snood (Gangion or branch line):
• Branch lines which are also known as snood or gangions are

connected to the main line at appropriate branch line intervals.

• Length of branch lines is, generally, limited to less than half the

spacing between two adjacent branch lines, in order prevent

entangling.
• In traditional tuna long lines, branch line may consist of the following

parts.
• Specifications vary from design to design, depending on target

species and operating conditions.

Branch line consists of several parts:
Branch line proper (Compound wire)
• Branch line proper is usually of the same material as the main line but
of lower diameter.
• The long eye splice at one end is connected to the main line loop by a
double sheet bent or more commonly by a snap-on clip.
• Snap-on clips make it easier to connect and disconnect the branch
lines.
Sekiyama (Secondary leader)
• Sekiyama or secondary leader may be or may not be present in shark
lines. When present, it is connected to the branch line proper through a
swivel.
• Sekiyama is constructed of three-strand twisted steel wire seized by
cotton twine. Together with the swivel it has the function of preventing
twists, kinks and entanglement.
Snood wire (Leader wire)
• Snood wire is made of steel wire and connects the hook to sekiyama or directly to the
branch line proper through swivel.
• It protects the hook from loss due to shark bite. Short lengths of link chain are
also used in place of steel wire.
Snap
• Metal clip, that is used to attached the snood (branch line) and hook to the mainline.
The Hook
• Hooks used in long line comes in shapes and sizes. They are manufacture of
galvanised iron, brass or stainless steel.
• Most common type of hook used in lines are traditional round bent hooks or J-hooks
and variations such as angular, long shank, kerbed and swan neck hooks.
• Circle hooks have improved design and better efficiency in hooking and retaining than
traditional hooks.
• Special designs of hooks have been evolved for use in automated long line systems.
The bait
• Cut in pieces or whole finfish, shell fish, or squid/Octobus
Buoys and buoy lines
• Buoys and buoy lines are used to position the long line at the appropriate

fishing depth corresponding to the swimming layer of the target species. Hard
plastic floats, fibreglass floats and large jerry cans are commonly used as
buoys. Polyethylene, polypropylene and polyester ropes are used as buoy lines.
Flag poles, light buoys, radio buoys and radar reflectors
• Bamboo poles with bright red or yellow flags are attached to the long line to
keep track of the line during daytime.
• Light buoys serve this purpose during night operations.
• Radio buoys and radar reflectors are used in large-scale long line operations.
Operation of long lines
• Drift long lines, bottom set long lines and bottom vertical long lines

are set over stern and hauled over the bow or side forward.
• A baiting table and chute are generally located on the stern to

facilitate shooting operation. Hauling is generally done using a

powered line hauler in the fore deck.
Operation of drift long line
• Tuna long line operation begins early in the morning before sun rise. The line is shot

from the stern.

• The first marker buoy with the flag, radio buoy and light buoy with attached end of

the main line are thrown overboard at the outset of operations.

• The hooks are baited as the line is released.
• The vessel steams at the set course at 5-6 knots during the setting operation.
• The marker buoys, light buoys and radio buoys are connected at the appropriate
intervals.
• After completion of the setting, the vessel drifts in the proximity of line for 6-7
intervals.
• Hauling begins in the evening before sunset.
• A line hauler is used for hauling the line and as the branch line comes onboard, the
fish is removed.
 In traditional operations, sections of main line with the
accompanying branch lines are coiled and kept in units known as
baskets.
 In modern large-scale operations, main line is continuous and is
stored on a powered reel.
 The baited branch lines are attached to the main line as it is
released during setting operation.
 On hauling the branch lines are removed from main line and
stored separately.
Operation of bottom set long line and bottom vertical long line
• On reaching the fishing ground, the anchor, first marker buoy, light buoy and radio buoy with the
connected end main line are thrown overboard.
• The line is set over the stern as the vessels steams ahead.
• The hooks are kept baited prior to shooting. Anchors/weights and buoys are released at appropriate
intervals and at the end of setting, the final marker buoy and anchor are connected and thrown
overboard.
• After soaking for a period, the lines are hauled up using a line hauler, fishes are removed as the branch
line comes up, main line and branch lines are worked more frequently compared to drift long line and
the soak time ranges from 15 min to a few hours.
Operation of vertical long lines
• Vertical long line are used in deep waters up to 1200 m and in

shallow areas having rough bottom conditions or in areas where fish

aggregating devices are deployed.
• The main line is set vertically with the upper end tethered to a large

float and flag poles, and the lower end is provided with a sinker.
• Branch lines are attached at appropriate intervals to mainline in
order to cover the frequently observed vertical range of distribution
of the target species.
Pole and line
Fabrication
It is consisting of pole, twine, swivel, hook, live bait are follows
Pole
 It is made up of wood, plastic or fibreglass

 Length depends on the depth of the operation

Lines
 It is made up of nylon multifilament and monofilament materials with desired
diameter of thickness
 Length depends on the depth of fishing ground

Swivel
 It is attached to the centre of the main line

Hook
 Barbless ‘J’ or circle hooks are used

Bait
 Live baits are used

Pole and line

Operation of pole and line fishing
 The first step is aggregating the fishes along the board of the vessel by water spraying

 Then number of fishermen equipped with pole and lines position themselves along the
board aft or all around vessel and heave the fish aboard as they strike at the hooks.
 Vessels carry live baits to attract the fish by chumming or water spraying

 The live bait is kept in a series of water tanks with circulating water.

 Once a fish shoal is located fishermen on-board starts throwing live baits in every
direction from the stern of the vessel.
 At the same time, side and rear water spray system are activated in order to create an
illusion of a large shoal of small fish
 These illusions along with the live baits thrown by the fishermen attract and concentrate
the fish shoal in the trail of the vessel.
 Small scoop nets are used to scoop the live bait out of the tank during the fishing
operation.
 The fishermen cast featured jigs or hooks into the water and haul them back
systematically
 Caught fish lands on the deck of the vessel where it releases itself from the barbless
hook and the line is then thrown again.
Pole and ling fishing operation
Trolling line
Fabrication
 It consists of a main line made up of nylon twine measuring 3 mm
diameter and 10-60 m length.
 Swivel is attached to the main line on one side and branch line.

 The branch line is a steel wire of one 1 m length to which is attached

the hook.
 Lures are attached to the hooks which rotate in water by means of
swivels
 The main lines are suspended from three bamboo poles of 8-11 m
fixed on the deck.
 A spring or rubber connects the main line to the boom, the elasticity
of which prevents the lines from breaking when the fish takes the
lure.
 Normally about eight lines are operated from the three bamboo
poles, three lines from each side pole and two from the centre pole.
 Operation of trolling line
 The lines are towed at a speed of 4-6 knots per hour.
 The outer-most lines on either side are shot first followed by the inner and central lines.
 The lengths of lines paid out are adjusted to reduce the entanglement.
 The fish strike a line, the speed of the vessel is considerably reduced and the particular line is
hauled and the fish removed.
 Subsequently, the line is shot and operation continued.
 In traditional way two lines only operated by hand from the both side of the boat.
Rigid pots
 The materials used for traditional pot fabricating include tree sticks and iron frame.
 It consists of top frame, bottom frame, two side frames and back frame.
 The length is 100cm, breadth is 120 cm and height is 40 cm.
 The funnel of this pot is oval in shape with a horizontal diameter of 45 cm and the vertical diameter of 60
cm.
 The funnel is 45 cm in length with the rear diameter of 8 cm.
 All the frames are joined/welded together
 Funnel is fixed in front portion of the pot
 Floats are not used and stones are attached in each corner of the pot
 Marker float is attached in top of the frame for easy identification of location.
 This pot has the internal volume of about 0.48 m3.
Fabrication of Collapsible pots
 The collapsible pot is made using three rectangular MS rod frames of 150 x 100 cm size
in a local workshop.
 Firstly, they are coated with epoxy resin and then painted with red oxide primer.

 The bottom frame of the pot is made up of 20 mm dia.

 The middle and top frame should be made using 16 mm diameter to facilitate separation
of trap into upper and lower chamber.
 Pot is covered with PE netting of 40 mm square mesh.

 Funnel should be made up of polyethylene webbing of 30 mm diamond mesh.

 Collapsible pot has two funnels opposite to each other in the lower chamber of the pot
or one in upper chamber and another in lower chamber.
 The funnel consisted of 5 pairs of panels made up of polyethylene webbing of 30 mm
mesh size and 3/4 mm twine thickness.
 The top pair of panels consisted of 100 meshes in length and 10 meshes in depth.

 The second pair consisted of 66 meshes in length and 7 meshes in depth.

 The third panel consisted of 44 meshes in length and 7 meshes in depth.

 The fourth panel consisted of 30 meshes in length and 6 meshes in depth.

 The end panel consisted of 20 meshes in length, which was reduced to 8 meshes performing
all bar cut at the both sides resulting in 6 meshes along the depth of the end panel.
 The upper panels are joining vertically together to form upper panel of the funnel and the
lower panels are joining vertically to form bottom panel of the funnel with a take up ratio of
3/2.
 The upper and bottom panels should be laced with polyethylene rope of 4 mm dia.
 The rear most part of the funnel had only upper panel, so as to fix a iron ring of 18 cm dia.
positioned at 450 angle at the end of the funnel so as to prevent the escapement of trapped
fishes.
 Two horizontal zippers placed in middle of each compartment.
 A bait bag made up of nylon webbing 210/3/3 with the mesh size of 30 mm is allowed to hang
in the lower compartment with help of two stainless steel clips.
 Four spherical HDPE floats (19 cm diameter) should be fixed on four corners of the trap to lift
the trap.
 Four stones each weighing about 1 kg should be attached to each corners at the bottom to
keep the trap stationary on the sea floor.
 Polypropylene (PP) rope of 10 mm diameter having a length of 9 m is attached to the top of
the trap and the free ends of the ropes were attached to the marker buoy to facilitate
locating the pots position.
Operation of pots
Traditional pots
 Pots are taken to the fishing ground with a help of a fishing boat.

After reaching the fishing ground the pots are baited with 4 kg of
shrimp heads/trap.
 The traditional pots are positioned at the sea bottom with the help

of a wooden platform and stones by diving.

 The wooden platform was placed through the mesh gap at the

bottom of the trap which was kept under stones of each weighing
5 kg on each side in order to keep the trap firmly on the sea floor.
Collapsible pots
 The collapsible pots are having bait bag made up of nylon webbing
210D/3/3 with the mesh size of 30 mm was allowed to hang in the
lower compartment with help of two stainless steel clips and is filled
with 4 kg of shrimp head waste as bait.
 After baiting, four HDPE floats of 19 cm diameter are fixed at the four
corners of the top frame of the trap to give adequate buoyancy to lift
the trap/pot.
 Four stones each weighing about 1 kg is attached to each corners at
the bottom frame to position the pot on the sea floor.
 Polypropylene (PP) ropes of 10 mm diameter having a length of 9 m is
attached at each top corner of the pot and the free ends of the ropes
are joined to a marker buoy to facilitate easy location of the pot.
 The pots are taken for observation after a soaking period of 24 hrs.
Operation of collapsible pots
Operation of beach/shore seine
 A large number of people (100-120 persons) may be needed for
operation of a beach seine.
 Hauling line of one wing is held by one of the parties on the
shore while the boat steams in a semicircle from the shore
paying out the bag, wing and hauling rope of the other side.
 This continues till the net is paid out completely and the boat
returns to the shore.
 The two hauling lines along with wings are then pulled by two
groups of fishermen bringing the catch on to the shore.
 The foot rope is hauled slightly faster than the head rope to
prevent escape of fish.
 Selectivity of fishing gears

 Fish populations are generally heterogeneous in species, size and shape, behaviour
habitat, etc., and hence differ in their vulnerability to capture.
 The property of any fishing gear or method which causes the probability of
capture to vary with the characteristics of fish is called selectively.
 Selectively mainly depends on the principles of fishing method uses and on the
intrinsic design features of the gear itself.
 Size selectively characteristics of some important fishing gear types are indicated
in Table
 Selectively is generally expressed as the probability of capture,
i.e. proportion of the catch of each size category of the particular
fish, retained by the fishing gear.
 This is derived by calculating for each size class the actual catch
as a fraction of the potential catch, viz., the catch retained by the
gear plus escapes.
 Size selectively of fishing gear may be defined by a selection
curve, giving for each size group the proportion of total
population of that size which is caught and retained by operation
of the fishing unit.
 By-catch reduction devices
 The term bycatch refers to non-targeted species retained, sold or discarded for any reason.
 Catch process and production of by-catch during fishing operations are represented in Fig..
 ‘Target catch’ is the species or species assemblage primarily sought in a fishery, incidental catch’ is
the retained catch of non-targeted species and ‘discarded catch’ is that portion of catch returned to
the sea because of economic, legal or personal considerations.
 Bycatch includes both discarded and retained incidental catch.
 In addition to the non-targeted finfishes and invertebrates, bycatch also involve endangered,
threatened or protected species.
 Fisheries bycatch has been identified as a primary driver of population declines in several species of
marine mega-fauna such as elasmobranchs, mammals, seabirds and sea turtles.
 Minimizing fisheries bycatch is a primary precept of ecosystem based fisheries management.
 Devices developed to exclude the endangered species like turtle, and to reduce the nontargeted
species in shrimp trawling are collectively known as Bycatch Reduction Devices (BRDs).
 These devices have been developed taking into consideration variation in the size, and differential
behaviour pattern of shrimp and other animals inside the net.
 BRDs can be broadly.
Bycatch production in fishing operation
Square mesh window on diamond mesh codend
 Bycatch Reduction Technologies classified into
three categories based on the type of
materials used for their construction, viz. Soft
BRDs, Hard BRDs. and Combination BRDs.
 Soft BRDs make use of soft materials like
netting and rope frames for separating and
excluding bycatch.
 Hard BRDs are those, which use hard or
semiflexible grids and structures for
separating and excluding bycatch.
 Combination BRDs use more than one BAD,
usually hard BAD in combination with soft BAD,
integrated to a single system. Diamond mesh codend (top), square
mesh codend (middle) and square mesh
 The salient features of some of the important window on diamond mesh codend
BRDs are described in the following sections.
Escape windows and square mesh codend
 Escape windows made of large square mesh netting (square mesh window) or
parallel ropes (rope BAD) or simple slits (bigeye BAD) or rigid windows (fisheye
BRD) are provided on the upper side of the codend or belly and they function
based on the differential behaviour of fishes and shrimps.
 Fishes that have entered the codend tend to swim back and escape through the
openings, at the top in the front section of the codend.
 The square meshes have the advantage that the mesh opening is not distorted
while under operation, unlike diamond meshes.
 The codends made of square meshes maintains a cylindrical shape while the
diamond mesh codend assumes a bulbous shape with the accumulation of catch.

A view of Bigeye BRD (left) and Fisheye (right), installed in the trawl codend
Radial Escapement Section
 A radial section of netting with large meshes or parallel ropes is provided
between hind belly and codend.
 Small sized fishes, jelly fish and other bycatch components which have low
swimming ability are expelled due to enhanced water flow through large
mesh section.
 Often, a funnel made of small netting is provided to accelerate the water
flow inside the trawl and carry the catch towards the codend (Fig).
 Actively swimming fishes swim back and escape through the large mesh
netting section surrounding the funnel, where the water flow rate is weak,
while the shrimps are retained in the codend.
 Studies using Radial Escapement Device have shown 20-40% reduction in
the fish bycatch.

Radial escapement device

Turtle Excluder Devices
 Sea turtles are ancient and widely distributed species whose migratory
pattern extends throughout the oceans of the world.
 Marine turtles are endangered species which are protected under the
international conventions such as Convention on Migratory Species (CMS)
and Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species of Wild Flora
and Fauna (CITES) and under various national regulations.
 Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) are recognized internationally as a
convenient and effective measure for protecting sea turtles from trawling-
related mortality and also for reducing bycatches in shrimp landings.
 TEDs are acknowledged as an important conservation tool by the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, fisheries biologists and sea
turtle conservationists.
 Many trawl fisheries throughout the world are now required to use TEDs.
 Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) consist of panels of large mesh netting (soft TED) or a
frame consisting of grid of deflector bars (hard TED) installed before the codend of the
trawl net at an angle leading upward or downward to an escape opening.
 Small animals such as shrimp, slip through the mesh lumen of netting panel or gap
between the deflector bars and are retained in the codend while large animals such as
turtles, large fishes and large elasmobranchs are stopped by the netting panel or the
grid of deflector bars and can escape through the opening.
 Thus sea turtles which breathe air are prevented from incidental capture and death due
to prolonged entrapment in the trawl.
 TEDs were introduced in US shrimp fishery in late 1980s.
 Several improvements have taken in TED design, fabrication and operational techniques,
since then.
 There are a variety of TED designs available today, which vary with regard to
construction details, principle of operation, materials for construction and depending
on the target resource groups and conditions of fishing.
 There are primarily two types of TEDs - soft TED and hard TED. Soft TED consists of a
large mesh selective front panel fitted at angle to the trawl mouth leading to an escape
chute at the hind end.
 Hard TEDs are rigid frame devices installed ahead of codend to separate and exclude
turtles from trawl catch components.
Turtle Excluder Device