Bull. Jpn. Soc. Fish. Oceanogr. 76(3), Page 123-130, 2012   Realationship between drift speed of drift fishery gear and catch of giant Pacific octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini, in the Soya/La Pérouse Strait Minoru Sano1 †, Tadao Bando2, Naoto Ebuchi3 and Shiro Takayanagi4 1 Wakkanai Fisheries Research Institute, Hokkaido Research Organization, Wakkanai, Hokkaido 097-0001, Japan 2 Soya Fisheries Cooperative Society, Wakkanai, Hokkaido 098-6755, Japan 3 Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0819, Japan 4 Kushiro Fisheries Research Institute, Hokkaido Research Organization, Kushiro, Hokkaido 085-0024, Japan †e-mail: sano-minoru@hro.or.jp The relationship between catch and the speed at which the drift fishery gear used to capture the giant pacific octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini, was examined in the Soya/La Pérouse Strait. Latitude, longitude, time and catch data from 15 fishing boats were collected from April to December 2007 to calculate the number of dirft fsihery grounds visited, time spent for drifting, area covered, drift speed of the equipment, and the catch in each fishing ground. Catch was influenced by time spent for drifting and not by drift speed. The catch was greatest when time spent for drifting was over 2.03 h and drift speed was between 5 and 50 cm·s−1. It is likely that the fishermen practically choose the time when the current speed is appropriate to operate the drift fishery gear in the Soya/La Pérouse Strait, where the current speed varies between 0 and ca. 100 cm·s−1. Key words: drift fishery, drift speed, Enteroctopus dofleini, Soya/La Pérouse Strait