Bottom Trawls

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On board the Oregon II, trawling operations are conducted from two outriggers. The photo above shows a net trailing from the starboard outrigger in preparation for a trawl. Typically, the ship is single-rigged (towing a net on one side only) with a 40 foot shrimp trawl net for the Summer/Fall Groundfish Surveys. During these surveys, trawling operations are conducted at randomly selected stations. Each station includes a CTD cast followed by the deployment of a 40 foot shrimp trawl towed over a specified depth stratum. The trawl is towed for no less than 10 but not more than 50 minutes. If a depth stratum is not covered within 50 minutes, the trawl is retrieved and then reset on the point of retrieval. This routine is repeated as necessary to cover the depth stratum. The catch (shrimp and other bottom dwellers) is brought aboard, then sorted, identified, and measured by the scientific party. Trawl operations differ for the Striped Bass Tagging Project and prove to be very demanding of the ship, crew, and scientific party. The ship is double-rigged (towing with nets from both outriggers) with 65 foot Mongoose nets. These nets are in the water continuously, only being brought on deck to dump the catch. This routine can load the holding tanks with hundreds of striped bass, and may require all hands of the scientific party to process.