YOSHIDA: AMERICAN SAMOA LONGLINE FISHERY 



of lat. 20°S fluctuates seasonally. Areas of con- 

 centrated fishing effort were evident in the second 

 and third quarters in the area south of lat. 20°S. 

 Very little effort was expended in these waters in 

 the first and fourth quarters. Good CPUE's were 

 experienced in these areas of high fishing effort in 

 the second and third quarters. Although there 

 were some indications that the apparent abun- 

 dance of albacore was low in the southern waters 

 in the first and fourth quarters, more data are 

 needed to show this conclusively. 



The apparent temporal changes in CPUE in the 

 southern waters may be related to seasonal 

 changes in recruitment of albacore into the 

 fishery. The length-frequency distribution of al- 

 bacore in waters south of lat. 20°S showed that 

 several size groups of fish were represented in the 

 catches, including groups of small fish not found 

 north of lat. 20°S. The good CPUE in the second 

 and third quarters may indicate periods of active 

 recruitment. Generally, the albacore were stra- 

 tified by size latitudinally; however, no such stra- 

 tification was evident longitudinally. North of lat. 

 20°S the catches were composed of fish of a single 

 size group. South of this latitude, as already in- 

 dicated, the catches were composed of several size 

 groups of fish. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



I thank Ray F. Sumida, who diligently processed 

 or supervised the processing of the data for this 

 report, and William H. Bayliff of the Inter- 

 American Tropical Tuna Commission and Grant L. 

 Beardsley of the Southeast Fisheries Center, 

 NMFS, Miami, Fla., for reviewing this paper. 



LITERATURE CITED 



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HONMA, M., AND T. KaMIMURA. 



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Rothschild, B. J. 



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YOSHIDA, H.O. 



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