Trawl

Trawl fishermen employ three basic types of trawl nets in California to catch a variety of species. The advantages of the trawl net are its economy of scale and consistency of supply. Trawl fishermen provide consumers with the largest volume of popular table fish, such as fillet of sole and Pacific red snapper.

Bottom Trawlers

Bottom trawl nets skim the ocean floor in depths from 50 to 4,000 feet. Bottom trawlers in southern California fish the Santa Barbara Channel for California halibut, sea cucumbers, spot prawns, and ridgeback prawns. In central and northern California, trawlers fish for a complex of groundfish species including flounder, lingcod, rockfish (commonly called Pacific red snapper), blackcod (sablefish), several varieties of sole, and thornyhead (also called channel rockfish).

Midwater Trawlers

Midwater trawlers tow nets through the water column for Pacific whiting (hake), the single largest biomass of fish on the Pacific coast.

Shrimpers

In northern and central California, shrimpers use small-mesh trawl nets to fish for Pacific Ocean or pink shrimp. Many shrimp vessels are double-rigged to tow two nets, one on each side of the boat. The nets are pulled through the water about 18 inches above the ocean floor during a shrimp season that runs April 1 through October 31.

In northern and central California ports, trawlers land the largest volume of fresh local seafood delivered to market. Trawl groundfish is often processed into fillet form: fillet of sole, Pacific red snapper, and lingcod are three local seafoods typically provided by trawlers. Trawlers delivered more than 54 million pounds of fresh seafood into the northern California ports of Crescent City, Eureka, and Fort Bragg in 1991 -- nearly 85 percent of all fish landed.

The federal Pacific Fishery Management Council regulates groundfish trawl fisheries through quotas, seasons, trip limits, and gear design. The mesh size in the trawl "codend" or catching bag is designed to retain larger fish while allowing small fish to escape. The State of California regulates California's shrimp and prawn fisheries.