Vessel

NEAMAP fishes from the F/V Darana R, a 90' commercial trawler out of Hampton, VA. The F/V Darana R is captained by Jimmy Ruhle from Wanchese, NC.  The vessels crew includes two mates; Bobby Ruhle and Rigo Rodriguez, who deploy and retrieve all fishing gear.

Gear

To assure comparability with NEFSC surveys conducted from their new vessel, NEAMAP adopted the bottom trawl developed for the NEFSC by the joint Mid-Atlantic/New England Trawl Survey Advisory Panel. We use a 4 seam, 3 bridle, 400 x 12 cm net with a cookie sweep and 1" knotless liner in the cod end. The doors are 66" Thyboron Type IV.

Sensors

The NEAMAP Survey uses a Netmind digital trawl monitoring system manufactured by Northstar Technical, Inc.  We use 6 Netmind sensors - one on each wing, one on the headrope, one on each door and a catch sensor in the cod end. This allows us to measure the net width and height, along with door spread in real time to assure the net is fishing properly. We place the catch sensor in the cod end so that it "trips" when the catch has reached ~5,000 lbs. During trawling operations, trawl monitoring sensors provide near-real-time measures of gear performance, enabling the Captain and crew to adjust tow speeds and scope to obtain the optimum fishing geometry of the net. Equally important, these data are saved to computer files which, when combined with tow distance information from the GPS, allow subsequent data analyses (such as the generation of abundance estimates) to be performed on an area-swept basis. Such analyses provide standard adjustments for tow-to-tow differences in tow speed, tow duration, current speed, and so on.

Cruises

NEAMAP has two cruises a year, occurring in the spring and fall. Each cruise samples approximately 150 stations broken down into 15 regions ranging from Cape Hatteras, NC north to Cape Cod, MA. NEAMAP samples near shore water to a depth of 60 feet and includes the sounds to 120 feet (see survey map). At each station the net is trawled along the bottom for 20 minutes, at a speed of 2.9-3.3 knots. Work is completed during daylight hours and each cruise takes approximately 28-30 days to complete.

Data Collected

At each station, several parameters will be recorded. These include (but are not limited to):

•Station identification parameters - date, station number, stratum.
•Tow parameters - beginning & ending tow location, vessel speed & direction, engine RPMs, duration of tow, water depth, tidal stage.
•Gear identification and operational parameters - net type code & net number, door type code & door numbers, tow warp length, trawl door spread, wing spread, headline height & bottom contact.
•Atmospheric and weather data - air temperature, wind speed & direction, barometric pressure, relative humidity, general weather state, sea state.
•Hydrographic data - water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH (each recorded at~ 1 m below the surface and ~ 1 m above the bottom).

After the completion of each tow, the catch will be sorted by species and modal size groups. For species of management interest, a subsample from each size group will be selected for complete processing. Experience shows that a subsample of 3-5 individuals (3 for very common species, 5 for all others) per species-size group per tow is sufficient for this full processing. The data collected from each of these subsampled specimens will include length (mm), weight (g), sex (macroscopic), and maturity stage (macroscopic). Eviscerated weight (g), for calculation of condition indices, will be recorded for select species. Stomachs will be removed, and those containing prey will be preserved onboard for subsequent examination at the shore-based laboratory. Otoliths or other appropriate ageing structures (e.g., opercles, vertebrae, etc.) will be removed from each subsampled specimen for age determination. As mentioned above, both otoliths and scales will be taken from black sea bass to facilitate hard part comparison efforts. For specimens not selected for complete processing (for all species, managed and unmanaged), aggregate weights will be recorded by species-size group, and individual length measurements (which also yield count data) will be taken for either all or a representative subsample.