Overall fish landings reported last year show a 16 percent improvement over 1994.

The Agriculture and Fisheries Department released its 1995 catch and effort statistics for the Bermuda commercial fishery yesterday.

The number of reported landings in the fifth year without fish pots show the effect of the ban and the local fishery's increased dependence on open sea or pelagic fish.

Over 880,000 pounds of foodfish and 970,000 pounds of finfish were caught during 1995, up from about 731,000 and 841,000 each in 1994.

The report also shows an increase in the time fishermen spent at sea which translates to the amount of fishing effort.

This was aimed at those areas and species which remained available as fishermen attempted to maintain or raise catch levels.

And it likely contributed to the increased landings noted in 1995, the report added, with fishermen spending 92,534 hours at sea in comparison to 78,583 in 1994.

The effort was spent on fishing methods such as hook-and-line and net fishing which required active commitment on the fishermen's part.

Alternative methods such as surface long lining were only pursued by a few operators but their results appear promising, the report noted.

Most of the effort was targeted at species previously caught in pots such as jacks and snappers while open sea species -- a major component of the fishery -- received extra attention.

The category for tuna and other open sea fish leapt 37 percent or by over 100,000 pounds and almost totally accounted for the rise in food fish landings alone.

Landings of these species comprised over 40 percent of total reported landings highlighting the commercial fishery's dependence on them.

Wahoo hit the highest level ever reported, almost doubling the landings observed in 1994 and more sharks were also taken as a probable side effect.

The added attention was influenced by other factors including the seasonal closure of three protected areas from May 1 to August 31 and the bag limits imposed on grouper species.

The protected areas included a large portion of the reef platform out to the 100 fathom curve so traditional edge and deep reef fishing were reduced while the bag limits dissuaded fishermen from pursuing groupers.

This led to the 21 percent drop or decline of close to 12,000 pounds of landed miscellaneous reef fishes which are encountered close to shore as fishermen directed their attention offshore.

This category includes parrot fish which were the largest single species taken by the pot fishery but are not easily caught by traditional fishing methods.

FISHERMEN FHP