An investigation of european anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolusLinnaeus, 1758) fisheries in the sea of Marmara

In this study, the characteristics of the fishing fleet that caught anchovies in the Sea of Marmara catch per unit effort (CPUE), and some population parameters of targeted anchovy were investigated for 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 fishing seasons. 112 and 79 fishing vessels actively engaged in anchovy fishery during the 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 fishing seasons, respectively. The length overall of these vessels ranged from 15 to 54 m, gross tonnage ranged from 10 to 637 GT, and machine power ranged from 261 to 3320 kW. An exponentially correlation was found between the gross tonnages and length overall of the fishing boats. During the 2017/2018 fishing season, the average CPUE value of landed anchovies was calculated 2.167 tons/day as highest ratio in March. The average CPUE value ranged between 0.160 tons/day and 1.589 tons/day in other months. In the 2018/2019 fishing season, highest value for the average CPUE was calculated as 14.950 tons/day in December. This value ranged from 1.725 tons/day to 11.066 tons/day in other months of the season. In the 2017/2018, the yield comes from anchovy fishing activities was noticed quite low. According to the results of this research, the length-weight relationship was calculated for females as W= 0,0013L3.645, for males as W= 0,0010L3.774 and for all samples as W= 0,0047L3.139. The von Bertalanffy growth parameters were attained as L∞=17.92 cm, k=0.37 and t0 = 0.73. Instantaneous total mortality (Z), mortality (M), fishing mortality rate (F)and exploitation ratio (E) was calculated as 3.2 year-1, 0.77 year-1, 2.43 year-1, and 0.75 year-1, respectively. In conclusion, pressure on the stocks by fishery must be reduced for the conservation of anchovy stocks and sustainability of fishing activities certainly.