A novel escape panel for trawl nets used in the Irish Sea Nephrops fishery

A chartered commercial twin-rig fishing vessel was used to compare catches by a standard control trawl net with that of an experimental trawl fitted with a 120 mm square-mesh escape panel (SMP). Although a range of positions for the SMP were tested during the 33-day trial a configuration in which the escape panel was positioned in the top of the net in the tapered section 8.85 m from the cod-end extension piece gave the most significant reduction in discards. This is further up the net than has been shown to be optimum in other Nephrops fisheries e.g. in the North Sea. A 12 mesh wide strip of 80 mm diamond-shaped mesh to divide the 120 mm SMP into two halves prevented the sagging of the SMP observed in earlier trials with a single 120 mm SMP. Following 16 comparative hauls this net configuration allowed 54% of juvenile haddock and 65% of juvenile whiting to escape from the net with no loss in Nephrops catch.