Report of the Study Group on the Development of Fish Pots for Commercial Fisheries and Survey Purposes (SGPOT)

The Study Group on the Development of Fish Pots for Commercial Fisheries and Survey Purposes (SGPOT) was a product of the topic group on “Alternative fishing gears” that met at the ICES-FAO Working Group on Fishing Technology and Fish Behaviour meeting in 2005 and 2006. SGPOT had its first meeting on 21–22 April 2007 in Dublin, Ireland prior to the FTFB meeting. It was decided to work on the first two ToRs. The meeting was attended by 24 participants representing 12 countries, and the work was facilitated by the following presentations:•Summary of GACAPOT meeting, Gloucester Nov. 2006 (Michael Pol).•Canadian fish pot research (Philip Walsh and Alain Fréchet).•Russian pot fisheries and research (Oleg Lapshin).•Commercial pot fisheries around the world (Bjarti Thomsen).•Pots as survey gear (David Stokes and Robert Bunn).•Fishing consideration and survey design (Peter Munro).•Pot entry patterns in relation to environmental variables (Peter Munro).•Recent pot research by IFREMER (Jacques Sacchi).•Pot studies in the Baltic (Sven Gunnnar Lunneryd).