EU standing request on catch scenarios for zero‑TAC stocks 2023: sole (Solea solea) in Division 7.a (Irish Sea). Replacing technical service provided in November 2023

Please note: the present technical service replaces the one released in November 2023.

The current ICES advice is that when the MSY approach and precautionary considerations are applied, there should be zero catch in 2024. Sole (Solea solea) in Division 7.a (sol.27.7a) is a target species in the Irish Sea. Sole is primarily caught by beam trawl fleets, with a minority of catches occurring as bycatch in other fisheries.

The present technical service provides three catch scenarios with a spawning-stock biomass (SSB) target (presented in Table 2) and two illustrative mixed fisheries catch scenarios are discussed (presented in Tables 3, 4, and 5). The SSB target scenarios are:

• a catch option of 203 tonnes is estimated if the SSB is assumed to be equal to B_lim in 2025;
• a catch option of 385 tonnes is estimated if the SSB is assumed to remain stable between 2024 and 2025, resulting in an SSB in 2025 (2340 tonnes) below B_lim (2500 tonnes);
• a catch option of 118 tonnes is estimated if the SSB is assumed to increase by 10% between 2024 and 2025, resulting in an SSB in 2025 (2597 tonnes) just above B_lim.

ICES notes that the forecasts for this stock have tended to overestimate SSB in recent years, which implies that the forecasted SSB in 2025 is likely to be overestimated (ICES, 2023a). It is, therefore, not possible to accurately estimate the probability of being below B_lim at the end of the projection year for the scenarios above.