Can permanent closures of nearshore areas reduce the proportions of undersized fish in the Icelandic longline fishery

In recent years, about one-third of the cod (Gadus morhua) and haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) catches in Icelandic waters have been obtained with longline. Although longlining has been regarded as a conservation-oriented fishing method, a serious drawback of this fishing gear is thehigh catches of undersizedfish.Ourpurposewas to locate areaswhere catches of undersizedfish arehigh andconsider if itmaybe feasible to close thempermanently for longlining. Extensive lengthmeasurements used in the analysis weremade by official inspectors on-board longliners during 2005–2013 in the main fishing area around Iceland. We found that the percentage of undersized cod (,55 cm total length) and haddock (,45 cm) in those samples decreased in relation to both depth and distance from shore. Our results suggest that permanent closures of large nearshore areas for longlining is a feasible option to reduce catch of undersized cod and haddock.