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¹ Ege University, Faculty of Fisheries, 35100, Bornova, İzmir, Turkey
² Central Fisheries Research Institute, Trabzon, Turkey DOI : 10.4194/1303-2712-v18_7_04 Viewed : 3997 - Downloaded : 2821 More than half of the landing (70%) of Red mullet (Mullus barbatus) in Turkey is provided from the Black Sea, which is almost all (96%) with bottom trawls. The effect of demersal trawl codend mesh shape and size on the selectivity of Red mullet in the Black Sea was investigated. Selectivity trials were conducted in August 2014 on a commercial trawl boat with conventional (40D), 36 and 40 mm square mesh (36S and 40S) and turned mesh codends (40T90). Data were collected using the covered codend method with a total of 21 valid hauls and selection parameters were obtained by fitting a logistic equation using maximum likelihood method. The L₅₀ value was found to be very low at 9.79 cm in the 40D trawl codend, while the L₅₀ value of 40S (11.89 cm) and 36S (10.59 cm) codends was obtained 21.5% and 8.2% better compared to the 40D, respectively. According to the traditional trawl codend, a L₅₀ value increase of 5.1% was observed in 40T90 (10.29 cm). Although all these values are below the Minimum Landing Size of the species, changes to the traditional mesh, especially in the shape of the mesh, can lead to significant improvements in size selectivity. Keywords : The Black Sea, red mullet, codend selectivity, mesh shape, mesh size