4.3. Basque purse-seiner and trawler fleets (BoB and ICES areas VI and VII)
The “Baka” trawlers of Spain and particularly the Basque country fleet (north-east of Spain) operate in ICES Sub-areas VI, VII and VIII a, b, d. “Baka” trawlers can be defined as a single vessel which trawls a “bottom net” operating in contact with the seabed. These vessels exploit multi-species fisheries targeting mainly, hake, anglerfish and megrim; the average storage capacity is 50 t. Bottom pair trawlers comprise two vessels trawling a single very high vertical opening net. The main target species is hake. The Basque fleet currently includes 11 otter trawler fishing vessels, with an average length of 38 m and an average power of 461 kW s. A single otter trawler crew is made up of 13 fishermen, with a fleet employing around 143 people. The most important social impact over the last decade is due to the decrease in vessel number