This work was carried out as part of the Fisheries Science Partnership (FSP)
programme. The overall aims of this project were to examine i) the seasonal
catch rates of fish taken in the southern North Sea demersal longline fishery;
ii) catch composition of all discarded and retained fish; iii) vitality of
commercially important skate and ray species, focusing on thornback ray
Raja**clavata; iv) post-release behaviour and discard survival of
discarded thornback ray through an electronic tagging programme.
On each occasion longlines were deployed, the positional information, soak
times, and number of hooks/baths were recorded, and for all species of fish
length distribution data were taken.
For electronically tagged fish the release date, release position and
individual length, wing width, sex and maturity were recorded.
