author(s)
Sugumar Ramkumar, Lakshmanan Ranjith, AK Jaiswar, Kavungal Vinod and Vinay Deshmukh

abstract
The trawl net is one of the most destructive type of mobile gears that dragged over the bottom gathering wide range of marine organisms in addition to the targeted resource as by catch. In this juncture, an attempt has been made to document the non-target resources that are caught by the multiday shrimp trawlers operating in the commercial trawl fishing grounds off New Ferry Wharf landing centre of Maharashtra for a period of two years from January 2013 to December 2014. The study revealed that the average annual non-target catch constituted about 78.59% of the total trawl catch. The average annual catch rate was 178.64 kg/h of which the target catch is 39.6 kg/h and the non-target catch is 139.04 kg/h with the target: non-target catch ratio of 1:4. The study also highlight that the by catch consisted of 52.44% of juveniles of commercially important fish species with the catch rate of 73.3 kg/h. The discarded by catch was found to be 33.25% of the total catch and 42.19% of the total by catch with the catch rate of 59.3 kg/h. The trawl non-targeted diversity recorded a total of 145 species belonging to 112 genera, 73 families and 30 orders. Species that contributed more than 5% in terms of abundance (n/h) Charybdis callianassa (15.64%), Coilia dussumieri (11.98%), Miyakella nepa (7.29%), and Thalamita crenata (5.28%) and in biomass (kg/h) were Lagocephalus lunaris (7.57%), Harpadon nehereus (7.37%), Coilia dussumieri (6.82%) and Otolithes cuvieri (5.75%). The abundance-biomass curve depicts that irrespective of the seasons Maharashtra trawl fishing grounds are heavily stressed with negative w-static value. Bray-Curtis similarity coefficient reveals that high similarity in species composition was found between monsoon and post-monsoon season (77.47%). Findings of the study recommends fishery managers to suggest measures such as restriction on fleet size, fishing days per trip, regulatory juvenile catch limit, the establishment of suitable market chain for permissible by catch landings, sustainable harvest of fishery resources and participation of fishermen in the decision-making process thereby sustaining the stocks of Maharashtra fishing grounds forever.