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Summary Kuwait's fisheries include shrimp trawlers, gill nets, intertidal stake nets, and demersal fish traps, known locally as gargoor. The gargoor fishery used to be the nation's most important in terms of value and landings volume, but declines in catch rates have reduced its ranking. This paper describes the status of the gargoor artisanal fishery. The main landings place was sampled for catch and effort, and fish length‐frequency data from May 2003 to December 2005. The catch rate, monthly average number of boats operating, and the number of gargoor cleared were estimated for dhow boats fishing in Kuwait's waters and international waters, and speed boats operating in Kuwait waters only. Over the duration of the study period, the speedboat catch rates were higher than those of dhow boats, i.e., 3.7 kg/trap‐pull vs. 2.6 and 2.5 kg/trap‐pull for dhows fishing in Kuwait's territorial waters and international waters, respectively. The grouper, Epinephelus coicodes, was the main species captured, contributing 19.3% and 17.8% to the dhow catch in Kuwait waters and international waters, respectively. The catch rates by dhow boats declined from an average of 4.7 kg/trap‐pull in 2003 to 2.7 kg/trap‐pull in 2005 representing a 41% decrease. If this decreasing catch rate trend continues, then fishing effort should be reduced to allow stock recovery. It is recommended that the number of gargoor fished in Kuwaiti waters should be limited and that several no‐fishing zones be established to ensure the minimum spawning stock biomass and preserve biodiversity for all fisheries.

Three bycatch reduction devices (BRDs), i.e. the Turtle Excluder Device (TED), Square Mesh Codend (SMC) and Fisheye (FE), were tested to evaluate their feasibility in the Kuwait shrimp-trawl fishery. All three BRDs could be fitted to a shrimp trawl and normal fishing activities could be conducted both on an industrial trawler and an artisanal dhow boat. The comparisons of the catch from a net equipped with a BRD on one side and a standard net (exact same net configuration but without a BRD device) on the other side of a double-rigged shrimp trawler (steel boat) showed different results in the three BRD types. The net fitted with a TED performed well without capturing any turtles or large animals, and did not significantly reduce shrimp catch or fish bycatch (124.4: 117.0 and 852.0: 905.8, both P > 0.05). Although the SMC reduced both shrimp catch and bycatch in general, the Wilcoxon's signed rank test showed a significant difference only among bycatch (1034.2: 1147.3, P < 0.05). Chi-square tests showed that a net fitted with SMC caught significantly larger shrimp (more large and fewer small sizes) than a standard net for all three major shrimp species (33.5: 32.5; 26.9: 25.0; 20.3: 19.3, all P < 0.01). This indicates that the SMC reduced the catch of small size shrimps as well as smaller size fish. A net fitted with a fisheye significantly reduced both the shrimp catch and bycatch (137.4: 174.6; 997.5: 1377.8, both P < 0.01); the shrimp loss was probably due to an inappropriate location of the FE in the trawl.