Innovations in West Coast Trawls: How We Changed the Way We Fish and the Way We Think

Having built new, repaired old and modified existing trawls for fishing vessels in Oregon, Washington, California and Alaska for the last 35 years – we have seen some changes. Our group at Foulweather Trawl collaborates with fishermen to build nets that are bigger, better and lighter, yet stronger and, of course, cheaper and catch faster than the competition.  We also work collaboratively with the science community and government agencies on projects.

The last decade and a half has seen regulatory changes that have forced the trawlers to begin to work in earnest to not just fill the hold with fish, but to fill the hold with the right fish.  The recent advent of excluders as a tool to reduce the retention of non-target species has been met with mixed feelings within the fleet and has also had mixed results in actually reducing non-target catch. We have manufactured 8 different types of excluders for 4 different fisheries and have 2 success stories and lots of “almosts”. We would like to share our story of collaboration with fishermen, gear shops and scientists for successful approaches to sustainability in the trawl sector.