Abstract:
Seasonal data sampling on the total catch, target catch, bycatch and discard of four commercial bottom trawlers in the south-eastern Black Sea near the coast of Turkey was carried out in the 2016-2017 fishing season. Totally, 217 bottom trawl operations were sampled. Merlangius merlangus and Mullus barbatus were the target species while eight species were discarded, including trash fish and specimens below the legal size of the target species. A total of 28039.86 kg of biomass was caught during the operations, of which 22.98 % was bycatch. The weighed discard rate was 15.12 %. The highest CPUE values calculated for the whiting and red mullet were 69.36 and 23.00, respectively.