Abstract:Survey and field measurements of the stow net fishery in the 32 main fishing ports and villages along Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea were carried out from June to July in 2010. The stow net fishing composition and operation in Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea was studied based on the investigation data listed in the 2009 annual report on the stow net fishing gears and fishing methods issued individually by Provincial Fishery Bureaus of Hebei, Liaoning, Shandong and Tianjin, and data from Chinese Fisheries Yearbook from 1983 to 2009. The results showed that the production by stow net fishing was the highest in 1983 with a yield of 904 300 tonnes and a contribution rate of 17.18%, and was decreased year by year thereafter. Currently, stow net fishery is the major fishing gear and fishing method in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea area with an annual production of 381,500 tons and a contribution rate of 10.49%. Now there are 690,000 stow nets in 4 types, 7 styles and 19 kinds operating in the studied area. Among all of the stow nets in three provinces and one city, 53.54% are operating along the coast of Liaoning Province, mainly in the Liaodong Bay; Hebei accounts for 24.69%, mainly in the Bohai Bay; and 23.08% are used along the coast from Rizhao to Yantai in Shandong Province. Among the stow nets, 54.51% are parallel single-net stow nets for the shellfishes, shrimps and trash fishes, and 16.12% are double-anchor vertical-bar stow nets for Acetes chinensis. The minimum mesh sizes of the stow nets are between 4～30mm. The comprehensive analysis shows that stow net is the major fishery method in the studied area with poor selectivity due to small mesh sizes,which is unfavorable to sustainable utilization of the fishery resource in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea area.
