FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 72. NO. 2 



in the summer. Latham (1917) reported U. chuss 

 from Orient, Long Island, in the spring but not 

 summer. Breder ( 1922) noted U. chuss from Sandy 

 Hook Bay in the spring; and Hildebrand and 

 Schroeder (1928) reported that off New Jersey 

 and New York U. chuss appeared in April, dis- 

 tended with spawn, that they remained close 

 inshore for a short period, were caught 2 to 6 

 miles off until late May, and in July were 

 abundant offshore on Cholera Bank. Edwards 

 and Lawday (1960) reported that U. chuss were 

 abundant in the industrial fish landings in April 

 and May from the shallow inshore fishing grounds 

 off No Man's Land, Mass., and Point Judith, R.L 

 The fish dispersed in June and July and were 

 less available to the fishery. 



After they migrate inshore in the spring, 

 southern New England U. chuss migrate offshore 

 in the summer to spawn. Mature U. chuss were 

 heavily concentrated during the summer (Figure 

 13) in the strata shoaler than 60 fm off Block 

 Island and on the southwest part of Georges Bank. 



GULF OF MAINE 



sxjmmeb 



= 309 



FALL 



WINTER 



78 



I 5 e 7 e 9 to II 12 [3 14 c e 



4 5 6 7 a 9 10 II 12 13 14 15 



TEMPERATURE (°C ) 



25456789 10 I 



Figure 12. — Seasonal catch per tow of immature Urophycis 

 chuss taken off southern New England and the Gulf of 

 Maine. Abundance data are stratified by temperature intervals 

 of one degree (C). The total number of individuals captured 

 during each season = n. The number of stations occupied at 

 each temperature is indicated above each respective histo- 

 gram bar. 



Figure 13. — Distribution and abundance of mature Urophycis 

 chuss during the summer. Abundance in each sampling stra- 

 tum is indicated on a log scale. 



These concentrations were probably spawning 

 aggregations because ripe fish were taken quite 

 frequently during the survey (Musick, 1969). 

 Also Domanevsky and Nozdvin (1963) reported 

 spawning aggregations of U. chuss offshore on 

 Georges Bank in July and August. Although a 

 small number oft/, chuss remain in the southern 

 New England sounds during the summer (Ed- 

 wards and Lawday, 1960), these are probably 

 immature fish because spawning does not occur 

 there. Wheatland (1956) found no U. chuss eggs 

 or larvae in Long Island Sound, and Merriman 

 and Sclar ( 1952) took no eggs but captured larvae 

 in Block Island Sound, an area less land-locked 

 and more adjacent to deep water than the previous 

 one. 



U. chuss emigration from shallow southern 

 New England waters to offshore spawning 

 grounds is probably correlated with temperature. 

 Figure 14 shows that U. chuss were not abundant 

 within adequately sampled temperature intervals 

 higher than 12°C. Riley ( 1956) noted that temper- 

 atures exceeded 12°C over most of Long Island 

 Sound during June and increased until October 

 when temperatures were in excess of 20°C. Ed- 

 wards, Livingstone, and Hamer (1962) reported 

 that during the summer off southern New Eng- 

 land U. chuss were most abundant at about 9°C, 

 and Edwards (1965) showed that U. chuss mi- 

 grated offshore when the bottom temperature 

 reached about 10°C in the early summer. 



In the Gulf of Maine U. chuss became avail- 

 able to the shallow water trawl fishery off 

 Gloucester and Ipswich, Mass., in April or May 



488 



