Analysis on the national catch, CPUE and monthly fishing grounds of walleye pollock, Theragra chalcogramma by the trawl fishery in the high seas of the Bering Sea
Annual and monthly pollock catches, CPUE and fishing grounds in the high seas of Bering Sea between 1984 and 1992 were analyzed for centroid distribution and bivariate ellipses of trawlers of South Korea, Japan, Poland and China. The catch amount differed by country as 56.1%, 21.7%, 20.4% and 1.8% were caught by Japan, Korea, Poland and China respectively. Japan recorded the highest mean CPUE at 5.7 ton/hour while it was 4.3 ton/hour for Poland, 3.9 ton/hour for Korea and 2.4 ton/hour for China. Cumulative catch varied by month, with the minimum of 137,000 ton in March and the maximum of 848,000 ton in December. Monthly mean of CPUE was the lowest in February (2.0 ton/hour) and the highest in November (6.3 ton/hour). The centroid distribution of monthly fishing ground was located at a southern spot (56° 05'N, 178° 55'E) in January, and it moved anti-clockwise toward 56° 37'N, 178° 24'E in December. Fishing grounds were scattered more by the east-west direction than by the south-north direction. The fishing grounds were similar for Korean, Japanese and Polish trawlers, but Chinese trawlers that fished only from July to December showed distinctively different fishing grounds from the others.