Brown shrimp (Crangon crangon) support a lucrative fishery in the Netherlands with fishing effort of the Dutch fleet increasing over the past 30 years. The brown shrimp fishery remains largely unregulated and the industry seeks management to ensure sustainability and to obtain Marine Stewardship Council certification. A major challenge for the fishery are high bycatch rates. European plaice (Pleuronectes platessa), a commercially and ecologically important species, are frequently caught within nursery areas. Increased fishing effort, in combination with the changing distribution of plaice and brown shrimp could have implications on the amount of juvenile plaice bycatch experienced within the brown shrimp fishery. Combined survey, logbook and Vessel Monitoring Survey data were analysed to estimate bycatch based on the overlap between the shrimp fleet and the distribution of plaice in autumn, during 1980-1989 and 2005-2014. Scenarios were developed to assess the likelihood of plaice bycatch in response to changes in the intensity and depth distribution of the shrimp fleet, and changes in the abundance and depth distribution of plaice. Bycatch estimates for 0-, 1- and 2- group plaice are 1,924,287, 613,047 and 82,872 (in thousands) during 1980 – 1989, and 665,932, 25,963 and 2,051 (in thousands) for 2005 – 2014 respectively, suggesting plaice bycatch has reduced since 1980–1989. Scenario comparisons indicate that the changed depth distribution of plaice has the greatest influence on plaice vulnerability, decreasing bycatch rates by 75%, 82% and 95% for 0-, 1- and 2- group plaice respectively.