In 2019, Fishtek Marine and a fishing vessel from Cornwall trialled the use of underwater lights to increase catches of brown crab. No notable increase (or decrease) in brown crab catch in these illuminated pots was observed.

That said, there was an unexpected phenomenon noted by the fisherman who observed an unprecedented increase in king scallop inside the pots. The scallop numbers caught were not quite commercially viable, however, consistently, over the period of a month, the increase in scallops caught by the illuminated pots was over 1,000 times what would ordinarily be observed in non-illuminated pots.

Project funding is available through the UK Seafood innovation fund to investigate further. Click here