author(s)
BR Kharatmol, L Shenoy, AT Tandale and AT Markad

abstract
The present study deals with the fish catch discard rate and fishing efficiency of commercial multi-day and single-day trawlers operated along the Raigad coast of Maharashtra. The trawlers from Raigad coast carried out fishing operations between 180 10’ 00” N to 190 20’ 00” N latitude and 720 45’ 00” E to 730 30’ 00” E longitude in the depth range between 12 to 52m. The study revealed that the average catch was 32.65 kg/h and 32.09 kg/h with an average discard of 7.63 kg/h and 4.02 kg/h for multi-day and single-day trawler respectively. The t-Test performed on fish catch and discards of multi-day and single-day trawlers did not reveal a statistically significant difference (p>0.05) in a fish catch (kg/h) but in the case of multi-day trawlers, there was a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) in fish discards (kg/h) between two fishing seasons i.e. 2016-17 and 2017-18 along the Raigad coast. The cod-end mesh size of the trawl net varied from 10 to 30 mm depending on the fishery resources harvested. Analysis of fish catch composition indicated the occurrence of 112 species of fishes in the catch of multi-day and single-day trawlers of the north Konkan region. In this paper changing trends in the catch, discards rates, and efficiency of trawlers are discussed.