A floating cod pot serves as a backdrop for a reflection on the 'GEARNET experience'
Surrounded by gear and project results posters from GEARNET projects, around 30 attendees gathered last weekend with GEARNET project leaders at the Maine Fishermen's Forum to hear an overview of results from the 35 GEARNET projects that have been developed since 2010. Details on gillnet results were also presented followed by a discussion on lessons-learned and overall contribution of the project more broadly to efforts to improve and support the fishing industry's capacity to adapt to a changing world.
It was during this part of the program, a sort of round-table review of the 'GEARNET experience', when some of the most compelling discussion took place. Several attendees commented on the positive impression the project has made with fishermen who have traditionally steered clear of collaborative research. This feedback confirms an emerging realization of some of the most important contributions of the project: The bottom-up approach works. By initiating projects on the dock and supporting ideas that begin on the water, GEARNET has tapped in to the potential of broad industry involvement and engagement by beginning, developing, executing, and synthesizing results based in a network of fishermen, gear manufacturers, scientists and managers.
Adam Baukus, gear scientist from GMRI added, "The GEARNET model also seems to be an improvement from the way things used to be done by being able to respond quickly to challenges fishermen are facing today." Prior to GEARNET, ideas for gear research often began in the office of a gear scientists to be developed into a proposal that might be funded 6 months to a year later. Results might be available well over a year afterwards, and would be presented in a journal article that may never be read by a fisherman.
That is not to say that the GEARNET model is perfect, and certainly there are lessons to be learned moving forward - but initial feedback seems to point toward strong signals of success and growing interest and value in the GEARNET, bottom-up approach for collaborative research.
This was the first of a series of port-side meetings scheduled throughout the region over the next month and a half to discuss GEARNET results.
To schedule a meeting, fishermen are encouraged to look over the following 'menu' of topics and to contact Erik Chapman at NH Sea Grant/UNH Cooperative Extension to find out the meeting schedule or to schedule a meeting:
As we pull together our project final reports (to be posted at www.gearnet.org in February 2014), it's exciting for us to gather personal accounts of fishermen's experiences during GEARNET projects. Here are some examples:
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Dan and one of his semi-pelagic doors
"I would like to express my gratitude to be involved with this project. I have always wanted to try a net with smaller diameter twine, but the high cost of buying one deterred me. I knew the net would tow easier and there would be fuel savings, but didn't know how much savings. I am amazed with the results. I am towing a larger net easier with less fuel consumption and with an increase in my catch. The new net coupled with the Flow Scan really gave me assurance that efficiency and savings are really there. I wanted to take a step farther so I purchased a set of Semi-Pelagic Doors. With the help of GEARNET and the Walker Foundation, I was able to get a rebate to help pay for the doors. The new doors are Fantastic! Right away I gained over 1/2 knot of towing speed. With my old gear I had to push the engine to get 2.8kts, but now I can tow over 3kts. This was a very educational project and will be interesting what the savings will be over time.
Thank Again for this Great Opportunity."
Daniel Murphy
F/V Bantry Bay
Project - Explore fuel savings using smaller diameter twine and a loan program to help interested fishermen transition to using semi-pelagic trawl doors that save fuel and reduce sea-bed impacts:
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Jayson Driscoll (right) aboard F/V Sweet Misery (photo - Sara Van Horne)
"I think we may have built a net that can target an underutilized fish while allowing a weaker species to rebound"
Jason Driscoll
F/V Sweet Misery
Project - NH Sector XI - explore the use of gillnets raised off the sea-bed to reduce catches of Atlantic cod while maintaining catches of more abundant, marketable fish.
Have you heard about some results from a GEARNET or related project that you'd like to hear more about or that you think others would be interested in? Then schedule a dock-side meeting and we'll show up with the right people to discuss them with you. Raised gillnets, LED pingers, cod pots, topless trawls, semi-pelagic doors, modified net materials that can reduce
fuel consumption are just a few of the topics we can discuss...so please don't wait - give me a call or email (Erik Chapman - 603-583-3430/erik.chapman@unh.edu) and we can schedule something in your neck of the woods....We're looking to schedule meetings from Maine to Rhode Island between January and March, 2014.....
New Bedford, the once great whaling capital, hosts one of the region's best Waterfront Festivals
GEARNET scientists, fishermen, and net builders teamed up with scientists from the Fisheries and Marine Institute in Newfoundland, Canada to demonstrate fishing gear in a small-scale (but still very large!) flume tank at the New Bedford Waterfront Festival. This was a follow-up to a GEARNET sponsored trip made one year ago by over 20 regional groundfishermen to visit the full-scale flume tank in Newfoundland, where scientists come from all over the world to test and design new gear designs. Both flume tanks offer gear scientists and fishermen the unique opportunity to view how gear behaves in water as water circulates through the tank and flat material moves along the bottom of the tank simulating towing conditions as accurately as possible.
The 'smaller' flume tank in action in New Bedford
Model nets are constructed and tested in the tanks as a critical step in net design and manufacturing. These flume tanks have been used in the development of countless new gears that have reduced bycatch and otherwise helped answered many critical challenges faced by fishermen and managers.
The 'Elminator Trawl', a net designed to reduce bycatch
in the haddock fishery, is shown in the tank.
Over the course of the 2-day festival in New Bedford, 9 fishing gears were demonstrated, engaging fishermen discussions with GEARNET scientists around net design and giving them an opportunity to show their families and friends a bit more about what they do on the water.
Demonstrated gears included several being tested in GEARNET-related projects, including semi-pelagic doors designed to raise gears off the bottom, reducing bottom impacts while reducing fuel costs and a small-diameter haddock trawl with large-mesh panels on the top of the net that reduced bycatch.
However, the scallop dredge was a favorite with the local crowd as the festival was held dead-center in the middle of the nation's thriving scallop industry.
New Bedford scallopers watch a scallop dredge and discuss how a turtle-avoiding dredge works.
On Sunday, GEARNET net builder and Principle Investigator, Jon Knight of Superior Trawl in Rhode Island demonstrated a break-bag design. The break-bag is a less-expensive alternative to a net sensor that triggers a release mechanism that closes a trawl opening when the cod-end is filled to a desired level. The mechanism is not currently being used, but has the potential to be modified and tailored as needed to a range of fisheries.
The Break-bag design attracts a crowd
The tank provides a unique opportunity for folks who rarely have the opportunity to see or discuss fishing gear and how they are often designed to reduce their impacts on habitat while catching abundant species. Thanks to our colleagues at the Fisheries and Marine Institute, Paul Winger, Tara Perry and Craig Hollet and Tor Bendiksen from Reidar Manufacturing in Fairhaven, MA for helping to make this happen!
Jon Knight points to gear in the flume tank to a 'captured' audience.
With cuts in cod quota, fishermen are showing their typical innovation to come up with new ways to avoid cod while continuing to catch species they continue to fish - and fish sustainably. Most gear selectivity work has focused on modifying trawl gear - but why not work with gillnets? That's just what fishermen in NH, Port Clyde and elsewhere suspected and with the help of GEARNET, they've started looking at a few different ideas on the water...
Jayson Driscoll (FV Sweet Misery, Rye, NH) has been working with the experimental gillnets
Beginning in the next few weeks, New
Hampshire gillnet fishermen will be testing the effectiveness of gillnets
raised 4’ off the bottom to reduce the catch of cod while maintaining a
profitable catch of other, more abundant, species. These nets have shown promise for doing just that, and testing this year will expand the test-nets to more realistic conditions.
Two
test nets have been constructed, each with five experimental 300’ strings
raised 4’ off the sea-bed and five 300’ standard strings not raised off the
seabed.
The
New Hampshire fishermen will share the experimental gear within New Hampshire’s
Groundfish Sectors XI and XII during the experiment.The fishermen are waiting for the fall, when
greater numbers of fish should be around to test the relative selectivity of
the standard and experimental nets.
This
project is paired with a similar effort out of Port Clyde, ME that also will be
testing the alternative gillnet design.
It’s certainly been a busy and challenging fishing
season, but these, and other projects offer a glimpse of the innovative and
resilient spirit that is echoed throughout the Northeast.Return here to track the progress of these and
other GEARNET projects!
Many projects funded in the spring of 2013 are now underway, and some have already completed their field work and are now in the analysis stage.
In June, Neal Pike on the F/V Sandi Lynn and David Goethel on the F/V Ellen Diane tested a modified groundcable setup designed to reduce sea-bed impact. They collected data over five days of fishing that included six sets of tows with the two vessels fishing side-by-side.
t
The FV Ellen Diane (in picture) and the FV Sandi Lynn (in the distance) tested the modified groundcables in June.
The results will be of interest to both managers, who may consider opening previously closed areas to gear with a reduced environmental footprint, and to fishermen, who are interested in whether fishing with such gear would make sense from a business standpoint.
During the experiment, one vessel used a modified ground cable with 8” rockhopper disks designed to keep the ground cable off the bottom while the other used its standard ground cable.
David Goethel points to the 8" rockhopper disks used to keep his bottom cable raised above the seabed
“We were interested in seeing two things from this experiment,” explained Goethel. “First, we wanted to see if a ground cable like this one actually stayed off the bottom and, second, we wanted to see how this would affect the fish we catch.”
Although the data still were being analyzed in August, the fishermen already had a few impressions about how the gear performed.
“We definitely seemed to be getting fewer flounder with the ground cable with the disks,” Goethel said. “I would not use the modified cables when fishing for flounders, but they could be used though when fishing for cod, haddock, and pollock during hard-bottom fishing when bottom contact is not desired.”
He added that the modified cables probably could be used anywhere the principal founder catch is blackback such as areas of George’s Bank where blackbacks are pursued with bottom gear.
The video supported Goethel's conclusion that the ground cable modification reduced impact on the bottom.
“The video was a bit grainy," said GMRI technician Croy Carlin. "But, you could definitely see that the cable is off the bottom.”
Video courtesy of Croy Carlin - Gulf of Maine Research Institute
A more rigorous analysis of the catch and fuel consumption results will be available on the GEARNET website this fall. The results will be posted alongside a related GEARNET project that tested a low-impact semi-pelagic or "LISP" trawl offshore aboard vessels operated by Jim Odlin’s Atlantic Trawlers Fishing Inc. in July.
Those tests looked at the impact of a system that includes semi-pelagic doors and 8” diameter cluster disks, which also are hypothesized to reduce bottom-impact while maintaining a profitable catch.
Stay tuned for more updates from projects on the water!
