Although most of the centers of sport fishing 

 for marhn in the Atlantic are on the American 

 coasts from Venezuela to Massachusetts, or on 

 adjacent islands, there are several in other lo- 

 calities, such as Bermuda, the Azores, Rio de Ja- 

 neiro in Brazil, and Cape Town in South Africa. 



TAGGING STUDIES 



METHODS 



Cooperating fishermen marked white and blue 

 marlins caught on rod and reel with dart tags 

 as described by Mather (1963) . Since this pro- 

 cedure does not require handling the fish or re- 

 moving them from the water, their sizes were 

 estimated. Tags and applicator poles were dis- 

 tributed to sportsmen by the Woods Hole Ocean- 

 ographic Institution, either directly or through 

 clubs and fishing tournament committees. In- 

 terest in tagging was stimulated by the press, 

 radio, and television and also by clubs or tourna- 

 ment committees which offered incentives for 

 tagging. 



The tags carried the legend "reward" and the 

 address of the Institution. (The fishermen often 

 were more interested in receiving information 

 on the tagged fish than in obtaining the $5 re- 

 ward.) Posters were displayed where anglers 

 gathered, and contact was maintained with fish- 

 ery research agencies to which tags were apt to 



FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 2 



be returned. Some fishermen believed that the 

 information gained from tagging hurt them and 

 helped others. However, the volume of tagging 

 and the percentage of returns increased over 

 the years as more fishermen became aware of 

 the program, and the mounting pressure by in- 

 creased commercial fishing eflfort on the stocks 

 demonstrated to fishermen the need for infor- 

 mation on migratory patterns, population iden- 

 tity, and the effects of fishing. 



WHITE MARLIN 



A total of 6,590 white marhn were tagged and 

 released in the western North Atlantic from 1954 

 through 1969; 65 tags have been returned as of 

 June 1, 1970 (Table 1 and Appendix) . Most re- 

 leases (5,340) were made oflf the middle Atlantic 

 coast of the United States from Cape Hatteras 

 to Cape Cod, Other release sites were off south- 

 eastern Florida and the Bahamas, off Venezuela 

 and in nearby waters, in the West Indies (Virgin 

 Islands and Puerto Rico), in the northern Gulf 

 of Mexico, and in the oceanic North Atlantic. 

 Of the 65 tag recoveries, 41 were by commercial 

 fishermen and 24 by sportsmen (Table 2). Be- 

 fore 1968, the Japanese longline fishery was the 

 largest longline fishery in the Atlantic and cov- 

 ered nearly the entire ocean, but only 13 tags 

 from white marlin have been returned from this 



Table 1. — Releases (after slash) and returns (before slash) for white marlin tagged in the western North Atlantic 



Ocean by year and area of release. 



286 



