Small-scale fisheries in the Northern Adriatic Sea.

Sampling of small-scale fishery landings at four harbours of the northern Adriatic Sae was carried out from 1999 to 2005 to study fishing capacity, fishing effort and quali-quantitative composition of retained catches. Landing data evidenced a strong seasonality of five fishing gears (sole gillnet, basket trap for gastropods and trap for cuttlefish) used on the basis of the target species'ecoethology. The landings of both types of traps included only few species and were dominated by the target one in biomass. In contrast, the retained catches of set nets consisted of a wide pool of species, but the highest yields were obtained only for the target species and a few kept by-catch ones.