Instrument: Tucker Trawl

The original Tucker Trawl, a net with a rectangular mouth opening first built in 1951 by G.H. Tucker, was not an opening/closing system, but shortly thereafter it was modified so that it could be opened and closed.  The original had a 183 cm by 183 cm flexible rectangular mouth opening 914 cm long net with 1.8 cm stretched mesh for the first 457 cm and 1.3 cm mesh for last 457 cm. 152 cm of coarse plankton or muslin netting lined the end of the net. Tucker designed the net to collect animals associated with the deep scattering layers, principally euphausiids, siphonophores, and midwater fish. (from Wiebe and Benfield, 2003). Currently used Tucker Trawls usually have 1-m2 openings and can have a single net or multiple nets on the frame.