article was placed in The Fisherman’s Call, a newsletter based at East Farm’s Commercial Fisheries Center, asking fishermen to respond with proposals to improve their business.

A proposal came in—find some way to fish for haddock without depleting the protected stocks of cod. The problem was haddock, which are plentiful, live with other less plentiful bottom fish such as cod and yellowtail flounder. The Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan is set up to restrict the harvest of “species of critical concern” such as cod and flounder.

As Beutel explains it, there are three categories of fishing days set up by the management plan. There are “A” days-at-sea when the most valuable species can be harvested; there are “B” days-at-sea reserved to catch fish that are in healthy stocks. And there are “C” days-at-sea when fish with limited market value can be caught. Commercial fishermen get only so many “A” days a year. “B” days are more generous in number, but fishermen have to avoid catching fish that fall into the "A” category.

In short, haddock are “B” day fish and cod and yellowtail are “A”, and they make life difficult for fishermen because they live together. Until now one cannot fish for haddock without harming the stocks of cod and yellowtails.

The challenge was intriguing to Beutel and Skrobe who decided to apply for a $422,000 grant to provide documentation for a certain type of rope net that will trap haddock but let other less plentiful ground fish escape.

A potential solution already existed. Jonathan Knight, a URI engineering graduate who has a net-building firm, Superior Trawl, at Davisville had designed a special net for the squid fishing industry. It consisted of 6-inch mesh at the top, but a much wider mesh at the bottom. This design was interesting, says Beutel, because it could be the solution to the haddock/cod fishing problem. The solution, explains Skrobe, was provided in part by the fish themselves—when bottom fish encounter a trawl net, the haddock tend to swim to the top and cod and yellowtails go to the bottom.

Knight’s squid net was slightly modified to take advantage of the fishes’ habits—the mesh at the top was six-inches and at the bottom, eight-feet, allowing cod and flounder a great escape route. A scale model net was developed by Knight and three fishermen, Philip Ruhle Sr., Philip Ruhle Jr., and James O’Grady. They then tested the model in a flume tank in Newfoundland. A flume tank is to scale model nets as a wind tunnel is to scale model aircraft.

It should be pointed out that the benefit of using this type of bycatch net was already known. But in order for the authorities to change the restrictions on “B” days-at-sea, they needed documentation that the method worked consistently—that’s where the research study comes in.

Beutel and Skrobe completed just the first of the four planned research trips but the results are extremely encouraging. The haddock harvest was great and the number of cod and yellowtail caught in the special nets was minimal.

To conduct the research trials, two large commercial trawlers are used at one time (three boats, F/V Sea Breeze, F/V Rhonda Denise and F/V Iron Horse are actually enlisted in the program and they will take turns.). Beutel was on one and Skrobe was on the other. In the trials, the two boats trawl in parallel courses in a closed area of Georges Bank (special permission had to be obtained to use this area). Each boat pulled two nets—one was the special rope net, and the other a regular net which served as the control. Six comparison trawls were done each day. Each boat had an observer on board.

Three more 5-day research trials are planned—each to be held in a different season, wrapping up next year (fishing in the area is banned January to May).

Beutel and Skrobe figure all the data will be put together by sometime next year and if all is well, changes to the management plan regulations to allow fishing for haddock with the special nets could be put into effect the year after. Kathy Castro, director of the RI Sea Grant Fisheries Extension Program will assist in the project.

When that happens, the haddock fishing industry could experience a boom, says Beutel—not to mention the makers of the specialized nets.

Skrobe says one of the main purposes of the project is to find ways to keep American fishermen working without endangering the resources.

“I think the most important thing about this project,” says Beutel, “is the cooperation between URI and the fishing industry,” hinting that more cooperative projects could be in the offing.

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