Notus has developed what it describes as the first shrimp detector for trawl gears, and reports from the first users to fit the system to shrimp trawls have been highly positive.
“It’s awesome!” said Jimmy Burns, who skippers the Galway Bay. “Worked right out of the box. I can see if I’m catching 500lbs/hr or 2000lbs/hr.”
“Conventional sounders cannot detect shrimp as, unlike fish, they have no swim bladder,” said Francis Parrott at Notus. “The main question for any shrimp trawler skipper is, where on my tow am I catching my shrimp?”
The Notus Echo consists of a sensor and a microphone mounted on a shrimp trawl’s sorting grid. The microphone picks up the sound of shrimp hitting the grid through the tow, registering the increase or decrease in shrimp volume, and transmitting the data back to the catching vessel to be picked up by a towed or hull-mounted hydrophone.
The information is displayed on a control module in the wheelhouse, providing a real-time indication of catching efficiency, while also monitoring the grid angle and water temperature.
“Seeing where I am catching shrimp changed our fishing operation,” commented Ben Downs of the Pacific Dove. “We would not want to fish without it.”
“The results have been outstanding in increasing catches. A skipper can detect exactly where he is catching shrimp on a 3-4 hour tow. He can turn around and hit the same hot spot a second time,” Francis Parrott said, commenting that the Notus Echo can be supplied either as a standalone installation or as part of a set of trawl sensors.
