54 



Fishery Bulletin 9! [I). 1993 



present in samples from offshore collecting sites 

 until late July and early August. Fish occurring on 

 wrecks further offshore (and usually deeper) generally 

 had higher GSI values later into the season (early 

 July-early August) than those collected from inshore 

 areas. 



Chi-square analysis of sex ratios for 701 tautog di- 

 vided into 10 cm length-groups indicated significant de- 

 viations <x 2 =18.87; df=l) from a 1:1 sex ratio in the 

 larger size-classes (Table 7). The larger size-classes 

 and older fishes were comprised predominantly of 

 males. 



Discussion 



Age and growth 



The only previously published study on age, growth, 

 and longevity of tautog was from samples collected in 

 and near Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island (Cooper 

 1967). Cooper's (1966) tag and recapture data verified 

 that continuous rings on opercle bones in tautog rep- 

 resented annuli and that these marks were indicative 

 of rate of growth over the year. High level of agree- 

 ment between opercle readings, high linear correla- 

 tion between TL and OR, and consistent time of annu- 

 lus formation for fish examined in this study were 

 similar to results reported by Cooper ( 1967). 



Our study is the first to present information on 

 growth and longevity for tautog from southern por- 

 tions of the species range. Our results agree with those 

 of Cooper ( 1967) on tautog from Rhode Island that the 



