In this study, the conventional cylinder-shaped lower bar on the canvas was modified and its performance was tested to improve the opening force of the stow net on anchor. The improved new lower bar used in the test is consisted of 13 flat bars with a length of 1.8 m, a width of 0.075 m and a thickness of 4 mm, and a pipe with a length of 2.0 m and a diameter of 50 mm. A stow net with the improved lower bar and a stow net with an existing lower bar were installed underwater and their trajectories for 21 hours were examined. To confirm their trajectories, GPS loggers were attached to the buoys on the left and right canvases and the buoy of the hauling rope. As a result of the test, the rotation of the gear with the improved bar was smoother than that with the existing bar. As a result of comparing the changes in the interval of the buoys attached to the canvas after the low and high tide, the buoy spacing of the gear with the improved bar is wider than that of the conventional gear; moreover, the larger the interval, the smoother the rotation of the fishing gear was. Therefore, it is considered that using the improved lower bar can enhance the performance of the stow net.

This study aims to investigate effects of the length of the buoy and sand bag line on the loss of webfoot octopus pot. A numerical modeling and simulation was carried out to analyze the process that the pot gear affected by wave using the mass spring model. Through the simulation, tensions of sand bag line under various condition were investigated by length of buoy and sand bag line. The drag force and coefficient k of an artificial shell used in the webfoot octopus pot was obtained from an experiment in a circular water channel, and the coefficient k was applied to the simulation. To verify the accuracy of the simulation model, a simple test was conducted into measuring a rope tension of a hanging shell under flow. Then, the test result was compared with the simulation. The lengths of the buoy line in the simulation were 1.12, 1.41, 1.80, 2.23, 2.69, and 3.17 times of water depth. The lengths of sand bag line were 10, 20, 30, and 40 meters, and conditions of water depth were 8, 15, 22 meters. 4 meter height and 8 second period of wave were applied to all simulations. As a results, the tension of the sand bag line was decreased as the buoy and sand bag line were increased. The minimum tension of the sand bag line was appeared in conditions that the length of the buoy line is twice of water depth and the sand bag line length is over 40 meters (except in case of depth 8 meters.).

The Fishing gear loss has been repeated every year in the West Sea; however, there has been no solution. So fisher men have undergone economic loss every year. Thus it is required to reduce the loss of fishing gear. In this study to find out the reason that the fishing gear is lost in the Sea, 10 years data of wave and current for 6 locations in the West Sea were investigated and a numerical modelling were conducted into the behaviour of a gillnet in wave and current. The fishing gear was modelled with the mass spring model. As a result, it came out into the open that the location where fishing gear loss occurred most frequently was Choongnam province. The height of the maximum significant wave in this province was 6.7 m and the period of that was 4.4 second. The maximum current speed was 0.7 m/s. As a result of simulation with these data, it was revealed that the buoy is one of the reasons to decrease the holding power of the gillnet. For example, the tension of anchor rope was decreased to 50% while the drag coefficient or volume of buoy was decreased to 25%. So it is predicted that an improvement of the buoy contributes to the reduction of the gillnet loss.