The August 2026 issue of the UK Fishing News shone a light on FloMo’s first Nephrops trials in the Irish Sea, capturing the attention of the European fishing market.
Run over 10 days on the Kilkeel-based prawn trawler Wakeful FR 261, a 22 m twin-rigger, the trial compared the performance of a prototype FloMo codend to a conventional Nephrops mesh trawl with an 80 mm diamond mesh codend and a 300 mm square mesh panel designed to release bycatch, in particular whiting.
Both caught similar catches of whole prawns, but FloMo saw significant reductions in the volume of smaller prawns caught, and whiting bycatch was 67% lower.
Identified by ICES scientists to be at critical levels, Irish Sea whiting is at risk of becoming a choke species in the Irish Sea Nephrops fishery. “The results in terms of reducing whiting bycatch, in particular those below Minimum Legal Size, were really encouraging,” said fisheries conservation technologist Ben Collier from fishermen’s co-operative Sea Source, who collaborated with the Seafish team and scientists from AFBI during the project.
That’s exactly what FloMo has been designed to do - give fishers greater control, improve catch selectivity, reduce unnecessary bycatch, and help support healthier fisheries for the future.
Read the full UK Fishing News article here(opens in new tab)
FloMo. A better way to fish.