Assessment of fishing effort, catch per unit effort and fish production of the tropical coastal lagoon of grand-lahou (Côte-d’ivoire, West Africa)

Abstract

Catch composition, fishing effort and gears production were investigated in the coastal lagoon of Grand-Lahou from November 2013 to October 2014. Samplings were carried out by mean of artisanal fisheries once a month in three stations. Ethmalosa fimbriata was the top dominant specie in catches with 56% followed by Elops lacerta (12%), Liza falcipinnis (11%) and Chrysichthys nigrodigitatus (11%).In Tadio station, important fishing effort value was recorded with small mesh size gill nets (37 trip/day) whereas in Agoudam and Passagri stations highest values of fishing efforts were recorded with medium mesh size gill nets and cast nets respectively. Highest CPUE were recorded with small mesh size gill nets (24.98 kg/trip) in Tadio station whereas low CPUE were recorded with large mesh size gill nets (1.74 kg/day) in Agoudam station. Highest production was recorded in Tadio station (265.921) tons with small mesh size gill nets (226.617) tons. The total production of sampling stations was estimated to 386,842 tons.