Kelo Pinkham, a Maine fishermen with a long fishing history and extensive hands-on expertise in the shrimp fishery, has teamed up with Dan Schick and Lessie White of the Maine Department of Marine Resources to try to increase the size selectivity of shrimp while reducing the bycatch of important groundfish.

Their experimental grate design features the proven ability of the double Nordmore grate system to release small shrimp, but is easier to handle because there is just one grate in the net. The compound grate is hinged into three sections. The top section has a 7/16" bar spacing and the remaining length has a non-parallel bar spacing that increases from 7/16" to approximately 1". The expectation is that small shrimp will pass through the small bar spacing and exit the net and market-size shrimp will pass through the larger bar spacing further along the grate and flow into the cod end.

Funded by the Northeast Consortium, this grate system may significantly reduce the bycatch of several species of flatfish, cod, hake, herring and other commercially important groundfish, as well as increase the size selectivity for shrimp.

For more information regarding this project, its preliminary results and additional cooperative fisheries research, visit the Northeast Consortium web site.