Exploratory trawl fishing and ground fish resources alongthe Kerala coast and adjacent waters

The paper deals with exploratory fishing operations mainly trawling, conducted along Kerj^a Coast and adjacent waters since 1908. Early operations prior to 1950 demonstrated tlie occurrence of rich grounds for percoid fishes in the Cape Comorin area and good hand-line fkhiiig grounds off South Kerala Coast. Bull trawling in the Cannanore-Cape Comorin region by the vessels of the Deep Sea Fishing, Station of the Government of India showed that elasmobranchs and miscellaneous fish comprising small sciaenids, lizard fishes, flatheads, etc., were common for the area with a dominant catfish element in the Cannanoi«- Calicut sector, perch element south of AUeppey including Cape Comorin grounds and a transitional middle sector having a few catfishes and perches. Inshore otter trawl operations with medium-sized boats were increasingly carried out by the lndo>.Norwegian Project, Deep Sea Fishing Station and private agencies mainly centred around Coehin during; the last decade. Deep Sea Fishing Station operations in the region revealed a composition of about SO % miscellaaeous fish, 20-35% prawns, 8-14% Nemipterus japonicus, 6-14% elasmobranchs and 1-3% Laeiarius faciariiu. These operations showed the area between Calicut and Alleppey to be more productive, those off river and bar mouths yielding good quantity of prawns. The catch rate of prawns and fish increased steadily around Cochin from 1957 to 1961 and since then showed a slight decline. The picture is indicative of excessive fishing pressure over a limited area. This points to the necessity for even dispersal of fishing effort. Indo-Norwegian Project hand-line fishing operations provided considerable information regarding the 'Kalava' (Epinephelus spp.) resources of the rocky grounds on the continental shelf usually lying in 70-110 m depth zone off Kerala Coast. The occurrence of a variety of deep sea prawns, densely shoaling bathypelagic fishes like Cubiceps uatalensis, Chlorophthatmus spp., Antigonia spp., mid-water concentrations of balistids etc. have been found out along the Kerala Coast mainly by the fishing operations of the Indo-Norwegian Project. These as well as the Kalava resources could be better exploited with increased effort.