2019 - 2020 Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (Cefas) Inshore longline fisheries in the Southern North Sea 2019/20 - Fisheries Science Partnership

This work was carried out as part of the Fisheries Science Partnership (FSP) programme. The overall aims of this project were to examine i) the seasonal catch rates of fish taken in the southern North Sea demersal longline fishery; ii) catch composition of all discarded and retained fish; iii) vitality of commercially important skate and ray species, focusing on thornback ray *Raja* *clavata* ; iv) post-release behaviour and discard survival of discarded thornback ray through an electronic tagging programme. On each occasion longlines were deployed, the positional information, soak times, and number of hooks/baths were recorded, and for all species of fish length distribution data were taken. For electronically tagged fish the release date, release position and individual length, wing width, sex and maturity were recorded.