FISHERY BULLETIN; VOL. 69, NO. 4 



and faster, and can operate more easily in rough 

 seas. 



Three jet-propelled purse boats were intro- 

 duced in 1962. Adjustable jet nozzles on each 

 end gave the boats e.\cellent maneuverability, 

 and there was no propeller or guard to entangle 

 nets. They lacked the power to close up the seine 

 rapidly, however, and were abandoned. 



With the exception of airplanes for spotting, 

 none of the improvements were adopted by ves- 

 sels in the Point Judith, Gloucester, or Portland 

 fleets. All vessels fishing from these ports were 

 small to medium-sized otter trawlers that were 

 converted to purse seining for only about 2 

 months during the summer. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE FISHERY 



The purse-seine season for menhaden extends 

 from late spring through fall, but the time varies 

 in different localities. South of Cape Hatteras, 

 N.C., it begins in April or May and lasts until 

 late December or early January. From Chesa- 

 peake Bay to the southern shore of Long Island 

 it begins in late May and usually ends about the 

 third week in October. North of Cape Cod the 

 season lasts only from about late June to early 

 September. 



To facilitate summarizing and discussing an- 

 nual changes in the fishery, June and Reintjes 

 (19.59) divided the range of Atlantic menhaden 

 into four areas, the North Atlantic, Middle At- 

 lantic, Chesapeake Bay, and South Atlantic (Fig- 

 ure 1). Although the boundaries are arbitrary, 

 they were drawn to take advantage of natural 

 separations in the fishing areas. Similarities 

 in age and size composition of the catches, time 

 and duration of fishing, and range of vessels from 

 the home port tended to .set each area apart. 

 The North Carolina fall fishery, a specialized 

 fishery that occurs only during November and 

 December from Cape Hatteras to Cape Fear, is 

 distinct from the summer fishery in the South 

 Atlantic and was treated as if it were an area. 

 This classification, which jirovides a convenient 

 way of expressing statistics of the fishery, is used 

 in the present analysis. Poits in the South At- 

 lantic area are Fernandina Beach, Fla.; Yonges 

 Island, S.C; and Southport and Beaufort, N.C.; 



in the Chesapeake Bay area — Reedville, Va.; in 

 the Middle Atlantic area, Lewes, Del.; and Wild- 

 wood, Tuckerton, and Port Monmouth, N.J.; in 

 the North Atlantic area — Amagansett, N.Y.; 

 Point Judith, R. I.; Gloucester, Mass.; and Port- 

 land, Maine; and in the North Carolina fall fish- 

 ery — Beaufort and Morehead City, N.C. 



A disadvantage of the fishery area concept is 

 that all of the fish landed at a port in a partic- 

 ular area may not have been caught in that area. 

 The problem is not serious, however, because ves- 

 sels seldom fish in areas other than the one in 

 which their home port is located. Port Mon- 

 mouth vessels, which sometimes go through the 

 East River to fish in western Long Island Sound, 

 and Amagansett vessels, which sometimes fish 

 ofl" the northern New Jersey coast, contradict this 

 general lule more often than do vessels at other 

 ports. 



The number and location of daily purse-seine 

 sets each year from 19.5.5 to 1966 were obtained 

 from logbooks placed aboard vessels at the be- 

 ginning of each fishing season. Port samplers 

 were instructed to pick up cojiies of each page 

 every 2 weeks, answer questions pertaining to 

 the methods of keeping the logs, and stimulate 

 interest of the pilots to keep the logs complete 

 and up to date. From 25 to 100 '^r of the boats 

 fishing at each port kept logs. Although gen- 

 erally over 60 ''r of the fleet was covered each 

 year, many vessels did not keep complete records. 



Daily landings of each vessel were copied from 

 plant records. Although some records extended 

 back as far as 1912, records at most plants were 

 not available for years prior to 1940. 



ANNUAL CATCH 



No trends were evident in the annual catches 

 in the South Atlantic area or North Carolina 

 fall fishery, but the catches in the other three 

 areas i-eflected an increase in fishing effort after 

 1945 and a decline in abundance after 1956 

 (Table 4). After reaching a peak in 1956 of 

 378,300 metric tons in the Middle Atlantic area 

 and 98,500 tons in the North Atlantic area, the 

 catch declined to 6,000 and 1,800 tons, respec- 

 tively in 1966. In the Chesapeake Bay area the 

 catch decreased from 196.800 metric tons in 



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