Panama
The bottom trawl used is a shrimp-cum-fish trawl (see Annex 1) and it may not be as efficient for shrimp as specially designed shrimp-trawls.
The records of all the fishing stations made are shown in Annex 2. With the exception of a few stations the “food fish families” such as Lutjanidae, Sciaenidae, Serranidae and Sparidae are remarkably poorly represented in the bottom trawl catches. These fish will in part prefer hard bottom where trawling may be difficult. Sharks occured widely in the whole area.
11 of the hauls were made in deep water between 170 and 440 m depth. The four highest catch rates of shrimp were 200, 70, 60 and 50 kg per hour with the best catch in abt 330 m depth. The average ratio of “Fidel” to “Cabezon”-shrimp was 2:8. Strong currents along the slope may have affected the efficiency of the gear. These results represent no more than a confirmation that the two species of deep water shrimp are found in some quantity along the whole slope. If more information on catch rates and catch compositions is wanted considerable more time must be spent on the shrimp grounds of actual interest. The occurrence of sunken logs on part of the grounds may represent an obstacle to a commercial fishery.
Small-sized squid (Loliolopsis) was found in many of the catches and could also be observed in the surface water by the light of the vessel at night. Catch rates were some times high, the four highest giving 1,470, 260, 160 and 110 kgs per hour. There is a possibility that further surveys for squid may be aided by the use of a high frequency echo sounder. A few “light-jigging-stations” were worked on and off the slope for oceanic squid, but with negative results. Giant squid was however caught in two of the deep water hauls for shrimp, abt 10 kgs in haul no 19 and abt 70 kgs in haul no 22.
Costa Rica
Annex 3 shows a record of all fishing stations made in Costa Rican waters. The “food fish families” were here well represented in many of the bottom trawl catches. Special efforts were made to test the “snapper-area” south of Cape Judas identified by the Spanish “Macuro”-survey in 1977-78. But neither the acoustic coverage nor the fishing with bottom, trawl and traps gave any indications of significant amounts of fish present in this area at the time of the survey. Good sized snapper appeared however in several of the bottom trawl hauls in Bahia de Coronado (st no 62, 63, and 68) and inside Golfo de Nicoya (st no 70, 74, 76 and 77). Noteworthy are the significant catches of big-sized bumper, lookdown and butterfish which contrast with the predominantly juvenile forms of these fish caught further east, especially in the Gulf of Panama. High catch rates were obtained for cutlass-fish, about 3 tons per hour (st 64, 87), for silver smelt 900 kgs, 1,300 kgs, and 3,300 kgs per hour (st 65, 85, 88) and for threadfin bass abt 12 tons per hour (st 88).
