Illegal Silver pomfret, Pampus argenteus (Euphrasen, 1788), fishing by Fixed gill-nets in Qeshm Island waters (Hormozgan province)

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the illegal Silver pomfret catch by fixed gill-nets in Hormozgan inshore waters (Qeshm Island). Sampling was performed in Bandar Laft estuaries through three fishing boats between April to July 2015. The fishing gears were the nylon mono-filament fixed gill-net with 6.5 cm mesh size (bar), 200 m length and 8-10 m height. The non-parametric bootstrap method was utilized to estimate the average catch rate (± Confidence interval) of commercial fish caught. After forty-eight landings, the catch composition included 14 teleost fish species and 1 invertebrate. The catch composition by weight also included 59.57 % target species (P. argenteus) and 40.43 % incidental catch. For incidental fish caught, M. cephalus and P. sextarius with 39.58 % and 6.83 % had highest and lowest occurrence and L. johnii with 4.57 % had highest weight percentage. The catch rate (kg.boat-1.day-1) of P. argenteus was calculated between 9.125 and 16.941. Using Monte Carlo procedure, annual illegal Silver pomfret catch was estimated between 265.690 to 303.701 tonnes (α=0.05).