FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 81, NO. 1 



Table 6.— Weighted means of back-calculated fork lengths (mm) for male 

 king mackerel from all areas, 1977-78. 



'Lengths based on less than 5 samples 



Back-calculations for male king mackerel 

 from all areas combined are shown in Table 7. 

 Growth is rapid until the third year of life, after 

 which time the annular growth increment de- 

 creases and stabilizes at an average 42 mm FL. 



Females from the combined areas (Table 8), 

 excluding Louisiana, also showed rapid growth 

 in the first 3 yr, after which the annual growth 

 increment decreased to an average 40 mm FL. 

 Females were larger than males for all ages. 



Fish from Louisiana ( all females) exhibited an 

 impressive growth rate (Table 9). They averaged 



69 mm longer than other females at age 1 , and by 

 age 10 were 218 mm longer than their counter- 

 parts. The yearly growth increment was over 60 

 mm to age 6, an increment not maintained by 

 other females, or males, past age 3 in other loca- 

 tions. 



Our combined back-calculated data were com- 

 pared with those from Beaumariage (1973) 

 (Table 10). His data were converted to fork 

 lengths from standard lengths (SL) using his 

 equation: FL = 1 .096 SL - 17.143. Disregarding 

 Louisiana females, both male and female mean 



Table 7.— Average back-calculated fork lengths (mm) at age for male king mackerel from all 



areas, 1977-78. 



102 



