In addition to technical modifications, simply regulating the soak time of hoop nets could reduce their environmental impacts; both in terms of size selectivity and also the potential for lost netting. In this study, hoop nets were more selective than pots for legal-sized P. pelagicus, with maximum efficiency achieved atsome point before 6 h. Such results may indicate density dependant changes to entry or escape rates, probably because of the relatively small surface area (i.e. ∼750 cm Ø × 300 cm) and the associated risk of antagonistic interactions among netted conspecifics (Smith and Hines, 1991). It is also possible that, owing to the large mesh size(i.e. ∼150 mm), some small P. pelagicus were less securely entangledand were able to escape. Butcher et al. (2012) reported similar selec-tivity for hoop-netted S. serrata. Given the similarities in hoopnet selectivity among often sympatrically distributed NSW portunids, soak-time restrictions (e.g.