Abstract:

Between July 2005 and May 2011, 13 Catch Assessment Surveys (CASs) were conducted at 54 pre-selected fish landing sites in the Ugandan part of Lake Victoria comprising approximately 10% of all landing sites in each of the former 11 (currently 13) districts sharing the lake. The CASs’ were conducted following regionally harmonised Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) (LVFO, 2005). This report covers the CAS conducted in May 2011 and puts into context the trends generated by results of the previous surveys.
In the Nile perch fishery, in all the three main vessel gear combinations that target Nile perch (paddle and motor/sail boats using long lines, gillnetting boats) recorded a downward trend in the overall catch rates and were slightly lower in May 2011 compared with March 2010. The downward trend in the Nile perch catch rates of boats using gillnets corroborates with the information of declining stocks that had been recorded in preceding Acoustics Surveys.