Large Pelagic Carcass Weights (Vessels)

Swordfish have been a commercially caught species since the early 1800s. During this early stage of the fishery, harpoon was the principal gear and the fishing was limited to the northeastern coast of the United States during the summer and fall months. In the early 1960s, Norwegian and Japanese vessels began fishing these areas with surface longline gear. U.S. fishermen soon began using longline gear and the fishing quickly spread to the western North Atlantic and became a year-round fishery. Landings of swordfish steadily increased from this region while the fishing moved south as new vessels entered the fishery in areas from North Carolina southward to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. Surface longline gear soon became the predominant gear and now accounts for about 98 percent of the U.S. commercial swordfish catch in the North Atlantic.   Before the mid-1980s, only limited data on the fishing activities from the U.S. pelagic longline fleet were collected. Data were collected by various state agencies, Fishery Management Councils, and university biologists from 1978 to 1983. These data consisted of weights for individual swordfish (headed, gutted and tailed) recorded on the weigh-out receipts (tally sheets) for the sales to vessels for an individual trip. In 1984, this database became the responsibility of the National Marine Fisheries Service, Southeast Fisheries Center (SEFSC). As part of this transition, the data were standardized and entered into a computer database. In order to expand the coverage, biologists at the SEFSC contacted vessel captains/owners and fish dealers and requested that they voluntarily submit their tally sheets to the SEFSC for use in scientific investigations of the swordfish fishery.  All of the data are coded and stored for the individual vessel that caught the fish. Quality control procedures established to compare with data previously entered to avoid duplication. Although swordfish were the primary commercial species caught and recorded on the sales receipts, the weights of other species were also listed on the tally sheets. Prior to 1985, the weigh-out data for the other (non-swordfish) species were not recorded. Beginning in 1986, the SEFSC began to enter all the weigh-out data for all species listed on the tally sheets received. The individual dress weights of other species listed on tally sheets from earlier years were entered as well.   Each record includes a vessel code, date of landing, state and port landed, code of the dealer purchasing the catch, gear fished, data source, location code of general fishing area, total hooks fished, days of actual fishing, total number of sets, and a species code along with the individual carcass weights for each species. All records from a specific trip are identified by their respective vessel codes and date of landing. Prior to 1986, effort (hooks, days fished, number of sets) information was recorded from personal vessel logbooks voluntarily submitted by vessel captains/owners. Beginning in 1986, all pelagic longline vessels that actively fished are required to submit daily logbook set records for each trip. Based upon this information, fishing effort is determined and, subsequently, added to the longline database.  The database contains information from the early 1960s (limited data) to the present and is almost exclusively comprised from data collected from the U.S. domestic pelagic longline fishery. Other gear types (harpoon, gillnet, handline, rod and reel, etc.) have been recorded from vessels voluntarily submitting the information or that were mandated to report by regulations in the past years. This database is continually updated as new information becomes available.

Tags: doc/noaa/nmfs/sefsc, fishdep, fisheries statistics division, fishery-dependent, national marine fisheries service, noaa, pelagic, southeast fisheries science center, species, u.s. department of commerce, weight
Organization: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce