In Patos Lagoon, the use of generic catch location in fishery management has been done routinely, leading to ambiguous situations, especially in those cases where imprecise location refers to large areas. For example, the generic name of Va ´ rzea or Z3 is routinely adopted to designate a very large area that ranges along the imaginary line on the northern limit of the estuary including very shallow zones and the deepest areas in the estuary. Fishermen, in contrast, are able to identify 31 different fishing areas using this generic location, making a distinction between areas according to a combination of characteristics.