fishing plan

Fishing Technology
The overall goal of the formal 5 week long course is to provide theoretical This is the heart of the policy on conservation of resources. The European Union's aim is to establish targeted and selective fisheries in the Baltic Sea, which can limit by-catches and mortality of young fish. Technical rules on fishing gear contribute to that objective. In this context, the European Union has drawn up a number of detailed measures, to prevent operators from distorting this basic philosophy.

For each area of activity and each target species, the Regulation describes in detail the types of gear, minimum mesh sizes and the tolerated proportion of by-catches.

knowledge and practical training in fishing technology. A holistic view is taken of fishing technology. The act of fishing is viewed as the an integrated process where due consideration must be taken of the design and materials used to produce the fishing gear, the biology and behaviour of the fish being caught, the environmental conditions on the fishing grounds and the design and operation of the vessel used to deploy the gear and the equipment used to monitor the environment, fish concentrations and the fishing gear.

Main topics are:

1. Fishing gear design (10 days).
· Study of nets and ropes, the material used and their properties.
· The design of main types of fishing gear and their technical specifications
· Interpreting technical drawings, standards and basic calculations.
· Maintenance of fishing gear
· factors affecting the durability and longevity of gear
· recording maintenance history
· Computer assisted gear design
· Making models of gear and testing them.

2. Existing commercial fishing gear and fishing methods (2 days)
· General principles of fishing gear design
· Construction and application of main gear types

3. Naval architecture (3 days).
· Basic principles in vessel design

4. Fish finding and fishing gear monitoring devices (2 days).
· Fish finding equipment, design and operation
· Gear monitoring techniques

5. Fish behaviour and their reaction to fishing gear (3 days)
· Senses
· Swimming ability
· Reaction to different types of fishing gear

6. Gear selectivity and fishing gear research - (3 days).
· Factors affecting selectivity
· Estimating selectivity
· Estimating catchability
· Fish exclusion devices
· Research for the fishing gear of the future

7. Synthesis. A theory of hunting and future developments (1.5 days).
· The master fisherman
· how does he gather information, process it and make decisions
· his relationships with crew, management, authorities and researchers
In general terms, there are two types of gear that need to be considered:

Active gear, which has to be moved by a vessel. In the Baltic Sea, this mainly means trawls and Danish seines.
Passive gear, which is set in the water and hauled up later. In the Baltic Sea, passive gear consists mostly of gill nets, entangling nets, trammel nets and drift nets.
In passing, it is worth noting that the use of dredges is prohibited in the Baltic Sea except for the collection of molluscs and of furcellaria lumbricalis, a seaweed that tends to proliferate wildly in areas suffering from eutrophication.