Catch, Effort and CPUE

Gould’s Squid availability in Tasmanian waters is highly variable with a few notable peaks in abundance and thus effort, as reflected by its catch history (Figure below). The highest Gould’s Squid catch over the assessed time series was 1,071.8 t in 2012/13, with the Australia-wide catch for that year predominantly coming from Tasmanian waters (Flood et al. 2014). In 2020/21, Gould’s Squid catch in Tasmania was 670.4 t (Figure below), 279 t of which was caught by fishers operating under scalefish licences, the remainder (391.6 t) landed by Commonwealth-licenced fishers. The majority of catch in 2020/21 was taken around the east coast, as well as the northwest coast as far offshore as King Island.

Gould’s Squid catches from the recreational fishery are considerably lower than commercial catches during recreational survey years, ranging from 2-80% of commercial catches (Figure above). Recreational catches, however, are similar to commercial catches during normal (i.e., low catch) seasons.

Effort for automatic squid jig tends to match temporal patterns in catch, presumably largely reflecting the availability of Gould’s Squid in Tasmanian waters (Figure above). In some seasons, higher catches have been achieved with relatively low effort, including the 2012/13 peak in catch and 2020/21 (Figure above).

Following initially low levels up until 2006/07, CPUE has been highly variable and thus noninformative, i.e., largely reflecting broad trends in catch effort and effort (Figure above).