At each station, a Nordic 264 rope trawl built by Nor'Eastern Trawl Systems, Inc. was towed in surface waters by a chartered fishing vessel (F/V Sea Eagle in 2000 and F/V Frosti in 2002). It was towed with about 300 m of warp for 30 minutes at 1.5 m/sec with a pair of 3.0-m foam-filled trawl doors and 90.7-kg weight chains to spread the mouth open. Except for two mid-water trawling events, six A-4 Polyform floats were clipped to wingtips and the headrope to fish the trawl at the surface. The trawl has a maximum mouth opening of approximately 30-m wide x 18-m high. Mesh sizes ranged from 162.6 cm in the throat of the trawl near the jib lines to 8.9 cm in the codend. To maintain catches of small fish and squid, a 6.1-m long, 0.8-cm knotless liner was sewn into the codend. All but several tows were 30 min in duration. The majority of trawls was done during daytime, although a few were done at dawn and dusk and two diel series were completed in 2002. From each trawl catch, up to 50 individuals per species of non-salmonid nekton and jellyfish were measured at sea.
U.S. GLOBEC Northeast Pacific California Current System Mesoscale Process Studies:\u00a0Non-Salmonid Meristics Data
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During juvenile salmonid trawling cruises, additional sampling included CTD profiles, neuston net tows, and Niskin bottle water collections for chlorophyll a. At most stations, data on all parameters were collected.
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Results: Detailed analyses of the nekton trawl catches for 2000 are presented in Brodeur et al. (2004) and for jellyfish for both years in Suchman and Brodeur (2005).
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Last modified: June 20, 2005