SQUID trawls made in Spain for use in Falkland Islands waters are based on a shrimp trawl design, says Vigo-based fishing gear supplier Jorge Lores of Eurored.

"They are four-panel trawls and all of the trawlers working inside the Falklands EEZ are using them with Morgere Polyfoil doors. We've found that this works well on both Loligo and Ilex squid."

Jorge Lores tells FNI that the Falklands grounds are fairly clean, with occasional patches of hard ground, so a light rubber bobbin rockhopper footrope is used with 14 in. rubbers.

"These are 2500 hp and over trawlers towing trawls with 100 metre footropes and a lot of this is the rockhopper. They like to have a four to five metre vertical opening, but spread is not so vital.

"Squid bunch together in a ball and the trick is to get the ball.

Then you can tow through it and scatter the squid, then go back again and - by that time - the ball will have reformed."

Eurored's hake trawls are two-panel designs used in both Falklands and Argentinian waters. These trawls are designed for much harder ground and are used by both Spanish operators and joint venture companies based in Argentina.

"These trawls have a different shape, with short, cutaway lower wings and we use much thicker twines, such as Cotesi Redline which is a PE twine blended with some secret ingredients, " says Jorge Lores.

"It's much stronger than normal PE and we can replace 5.50 mm PE twine with 3.20 mm Redline with the same strength."

Hake trawls are also towed on short rockhopper footropes with 21 in. rubbers.

"We have supplied Polyfoil doors for this kind of fishing and we have just sold the first pairs of Ovalfoils for fishing hake. We expect they will be popular, " Jorge Lores said.

"Polyfoil doors have done very well in Argentina and in the Falklands. The doors fish much the same as other patterns, but the big advantage is that they are so stable that you can fish in bad weather as well as you can in good weather."

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