A preliminary assessment of the South African east coast sole resource, Austroglossus pectoralis

Currently the Agulhas sole resource is managed by a Total Allowable Catch (TAC) which, for 2014, was set at 872 tons. Concern was expressed in the 2013 sole TAC recommendation regarding the fact that catches have, since 2002, been consistently below the TAC. In addition there has been a sharp decline in CPUE since 2009. As a result of the low catches and declining CPUE it was recommended that a task team be appointed to develop an effort limit programme for this particular fishery to be applied in conjunction with the existing TAC. This paper reports results from the application of a modified dynamic Schaefer production model fitted (coarsely) to the CPUE of sole specialists in six of the nine grid blocks which comprise the sole grounds in order to guide the effort limit-setting process