Preliminary results of a Exploratory Fishing targeting deep-water species off Uruguay

A Pilot Action of Exploratory Fishing was carried out in the second half of 2001 by two Spanish bottom-longline commercial fishing vessels within the Uruguayan Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ) targeting deep-water species. Trap fishing gears were also utilised as another alternative fishing gears.The main objective of the exploratory survey was to improve the knowledge of the distribution and the population structure of the species target of the survey: Groupers (Epinephelus spp.), Kingclip (Genypterus blacodes), Brazilian sandperch (Pinguipes spp.) and other accompanying species. Some preliminary results of this exploratory survey are shown in this current work. Fishery and biological data were collected by scientific observers on board of the two vessels which took part in the exploratory fishing. The collected data were date, time, position, depth, SST, SBT, weather condition, catches, discards, length distributions, sex, maturity, stomach fullness… among others. Length distributions, sex ratio and maturity stage of the most abundant species in the catch are also shown. Catch, effort and CPUE by area, gear and depth strata were analysed. Regarding bottom longline gear, the most abundant species were Dogfish shark (Squalus sp), Wreckfish (Polyprion americanus), Tope shark (Galeorhinus galeus) and Argentine hake (Merluccius hubbsi) in waters shallower than 200 m depth. Regarding Traps fishing gears, the most abundant species were crabs (Family Geryonidae) and Argentine conger (Conger orbignyanus)