Beam trawl is equipped with tickler chains to disturb flatfish from the seabed. For operations on very rough fishing grounds they can be equipped with chain matrices. Shrimp beam trawls are not so heavy and have smaller mesh sizes. Beam trawl is normally towed on outriggers, one trawl on each side.
Impacts: The penetration depth of a beam trawl depends on sediment characteristics but varies between 1 cm and 8 cm. The pressure force exerted on the sea floor is strongly related to towing speed and the warp length to depth ratio. Beam trawls leave detectable marks on the seabed. The major impact of beam trawl on species is capture and removal from the ecosystem of small sized organisms (juveniles) and non-target species, which frequently are discarded at sea.