Investigation of proportion between commercial and discard aquatics in the catch composition of Moshta (Weir) passive gear and estimation of length at maturity for two species of caught catfishes (Hormozgan Province)

This study estimated the discarded catch of the Moshta gear and the length at maturity parameter (Lm50) of two species of discard aquatics Arius maculatus and Plicofollis dussumieri. Sampling carried out in the city of Bandar Abbas since December 2014 for one year. After specifying the maturity of samples by the Biswas (1993) method, to calculate the length at maturity the least-squares technique under the king (2007) method was performed in Data Analysis Solver of Excel 2013. Discard catch included 65.23% of the weight and 74.93% of the number while commercial catch included 34.77% of the weight and 25.07% of the number. According to the results, the length at maturity of Arius maculatus was 28.2 cm, 51.50% were below puberty. The length at maturity of Plicofollis dussumieri was 32 cm, 62.3% were below puberty. The results of this study showed that Moshta with a high diversity of trapped aquatics, while some of these aquatics are caught immature, was a threat to fisheries stocks in Hormozgan province and the Iranian waters of the Persian Gulf.