Migration of spring-spawning fish, and comparison in capture between fyke nets and strömöversiktsnät in the stream Hammerstaån in the Stockholm area

During the last two hundred years many wetlands and streams in Sweden have been lowered to provide land for agriculture and forestry. Some of the coastal wetlands and streams probably served as spawning sites for certain species of fish in the Baltic Sea, but the present situation is not well known. As standardized methods to monitor fish in running waters are carried out during late summer or autumn, there is a need for methods to sample spring-spawning fish in these streams. The aim of this study was to survey the lower kilometer stretch of Hammerstaån in Stockholm, to investigate the extent to which the stream is used by spring-spawning fish. Furthermore, the study aims to evaluate a new type of survey fishing gill net called strömöversiktsnät (SÖN). This was done by comparing the catch of fish by SÖN with that of fyke nets. The comparison of the types of gear included number of fish caught, on a catch per unit effort (CPUE) basis, number of species and the size distributions. The study included 14 days with one gill net and one fyke net at two sites, in total 28 net-days. The inventory yielded in total seventeen species among which only trout (Salmo trutta), perch (Perca fluvitalis), roach (Rutilus rutilus), burbot (Lota lota), eel (Anguilla anguilla) and pike (Esox lucius) were previously known to occur. Six spawning species, smelt (Osmerus eperlanus), vimba bream (Vimba vimba), perch (Perca fluvitalis), roach (Rutilus rutilus), bream (Abramis brama) and white bream (Blicka bjoerkna) were caught in more than 60 individuals, which was set as a limit for comparisons of size distributions. There was no significant difference in CPUE between SÖN and fyke nets. Also length distribution did not differ between SÖN and fyke nets except for the species perch and white bream were the nets caught significant smaller perch and bigger white bream than the fyke nets. The results show that investigations with SÖN or fyke nets during springtime can be of great importance to increase our knowledge about spring-spawning fish in Swedish streams and the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea