In a quota fishery you can't grow the catch: the ceiling is fixed and the stock is shared. Returns come from a different place: lifting the value of every kilo, working the season smartly, and fishing so the biomass keeps rebuilding. The right benchmarks are how you find that headroom.
Kilograms of lobster landed per pot lift, the fishery's core index of abundance and the truest read on how the stock is fishing.
How much of your individual transferable quota you actually landed and sold, every uncaught kilo is margin left in the water.
Total pot lifts worked to take the quota, the input that, set against catch, tells you how hard the stock is being fished.
The split of landed lobster across market grades, because in a live fishery the grade you land drives the price far more than the weight.
The model's estimate of fishable lobster in your grounds, the abundance that CPUE stands proxy for, and the base your quota is carved from.
Spawning output as a share of the unfished stock, the fishery's hard sustainability limit, and the number that ultimately governs the quota.
The carapace-length spread of what you keep, against the legal minimum, where undersize animals are returned to spawn at least once first.
The share of everything you handle that goes straight back, undersize, oversize and egg-bearing females, the daily practice that keeps the stock spawning.
Litres of diesel burned per kilogram landed, the single biggest controllable cost on the boat, and it falls as the grounds fish well.
Kilograms of bait to land a kilogram of lobster, a direct running cost, and a lever you pull with bait type, pot soak and placement.
The share of your live catch that reaches the processor in prime condition, in a live-export fishery, condition is the whole product.
How your fishing days line up against the price curve, landing more of the quota when lobster is worth most is pure margin in a fixed-catch fishery.
The average price your lobster earns at the wharf, swinging with the export market and the calendar, and the top line of every trip.
Everything it costs to land a kilogram, with quota lease and fuel the heavyweights. Your breakeven, whatever the market does.
What each kilogram clears after the direct costs of catching it, the number that turns a fixed quota into a living.
What it costs to hold or lease the right to fish a kilogram, the largest single cost in the fishery, and the one that decides who fishes.
Kilograms of CO₂-equivalent burned per kilogram landed, almost all of it diesel, so it falls in step with fuel efficiency.
Protected-species interactions and non-target bycatch as a share of pot lifts, pot fishing is highly selective, and this proves it.
Connect your logbook, dockets and accounts, Silo keeps every benchmark on this page current, automatically.