For well over two decades now, trawling operations,
both exploratory and commercial, have been going on
along the north-western region, off the Goa, Maha
rashtra and Gujarat coasts (15°-24°N). A historical
resimie of trawling in India has been given by Jayaraman
et al. (1959) in their account of the demersal fishery
resources of the shelf waters of this area, for the period
1950 to 1955. Similar accoimts on the distribution
patterns of major exploited fisheries for 1961-1967 and
1968-1970, have been given by Rao (1969) and
Rao et al. (1966, 1972) and Nair (1974). Apart from
the above accoimts on the fisheries in general, detailed
studies on the pattern of distribution and abundance
of individual species have been reported by Rao (1965—
Pseudosciaena' diacanthus), Kagwade (1973—Polynemus
heptadactylus), Deshmukh (1973—Pomadasys hasta),
Kaikini (1974—Lactarius lactarius) and Kagwade
{1966—prawns), as also (Prabhu and Dhawan, 1974)—
regional fisheries off Goa. The results of these
studies, based on bottom-trawling operations mostly
in regions less than 80 metres in depth, have given us a
fair knowledge of the demersal resources potential of
this region
