Catch performance and fuel consumption of LED fishing lamps in the Korea hairtail angling fishery

Angling for hairtail Trichiurus lepturus using lights is common around the Korean Peninsula. Typically, metal halide (MH) lamps are used to attract fish during the fishing process. We investigated the fishing performance and fuel consumption using light-emitting diode (LED) lamps instead of MH lamps off the coast of Jeju Island, Republic of Korea. We conducted a total of 19 fishing trips using LED lamps, at a depth of 100–145 m during the winter fishing season of 2012–2013. The catch by the LED-lamp vessel (21.6 kW) was similar to the catch by the MH-lamp vessels of similar sizes (9.77 GT) but higher light power (45–84 kW). Fuel consumption per trip for the LED-lamp vessel was 454.2 l, and fuel consumption per hour for fishing operations (excluding steaming) was 9.2–11.3 l, with an average of 10.3 l. Catch intensity, defined as catch per kW of light power (kg kW−1) of LED-lamp vessel was significantly higher than MH-lamp vessels of all size classes. The break-even point for the vessels to install LED lamps instead of MH lamps is 109 trips per year when the fuel price is at the 2012 level of USD 0.82 l−1. In addition, through the reduction of fuel use, CO2 emission can be reduced by approximately 27,553.0 kg for each vessel in the fishery.