FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 3 



Briggs (1962, 1965, 1968) found that about 1.5 

 million fish were taken in Great South Bay each 

 year and about another million per year in 

 Moriches, Shinnecock, Gardiners, and Peconic 

 Bays. In 1964 to 1966 he found that winter 

 flounders made up from 17 to 40% of the sport 

 catch by numbers in the bays of eastern Long 

 Island. 



Edwards (1968) estimated that the standing 

 crop of winter flounder in the northwestern At- 

 lantic was about 185 million pounds (84,000 

 metric tons) , about the same as the estimate for 

 yellowtail. The rate of exploitation by commer- 

 cial fleets, however, was considerably less, about 

 17% per year. 



Commercial landings of summer flounders in 

 New York (Figure 22) have followed essentially 

 the same trend as commercial catches for the 

 New England and middle Atlantic States as a 

 whole, reaching a maximum in the 1950s and 

 dropping off" fairly steadily thereafter. Poole 

 (1966) suggested that the increase in catch from 

 1938 to the 1950s was a result of increased fish- 

 ing eff'ort, not increased abundance. Commer- 

 cial landings in New York are only about 20% 

 of total commercial landings, and there is no 

 reported foreign catch. The total recreational 

 catch in 1965 was estimated to be nearly 35 mil- 

 lion pounds (15,800 metric tons), about 6 times 

 the total commercial catch of 5.7 million pounds 

 (2,590 metric tons). 



The summer flounder, like the winter flounder, 

 is one of the most important sport fishes in New 

 York waters. Briggs (1962) found that from 

 1956 to 1960 sport fishermen took about 1.5 mil- 

 lion fish per year from Great South Bay alone. 

 The New York State Department of Environ- 

 mental Conservation has estimated that 1.7 mil- 

 lion anglers fish each year in marine waters of 

 the State (A. C. Jensen, personal communica- 

 tion) . Their removals of summer flounder and 

 other species are a very important part of total 

 fishing mortality. 



SURF CLAM 



The surf clam fishery of the Atlantic coast be- 

 gan its period of major growth in the middle 

 1940s. Landings in New York (Figure 23) 



30 



U5 20 



I/) 5 10 - 



tr 



Q 



J_ 



J_ 



zL. 



-L 



1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 I960 1970 



Figure 23. — Annual commercial landings of surf clam 

 in the State of New York, 1904-1970. 



were relatively small compared with New Jersey, 

 which reached a level of over 43 million pounds 

 (19,600 metric tons) of meats in the late 1960s. 

 But the fishery began off Long Island and shifted 

 south later, as abundance dropped on local beds. 

 The resurgence of the New York surf clam in- 

 dustry after 1958 came about through discovery 

 of new offshore beds and development of more 

 efficient harvesting gear. The future of the surf 

 clam fishery of the State is uncertain because, 

 like all moUuscan shellfish resources, this species 

 is extremely vulnerable to overharvesting, and 

 controls are difficult to impose. The history of 

 our shellfisheries is a history of overexploitation, 

 and there is no reason to believe that the surf 

 clam industry will be any exception. This in- 

 dustry grew because the soft clam and oyster 

 industries inshore were declining. The great 

 demand for clams and the current high prices 

 will be great incentives to harvest known resour- 

 ces heavily and to seek out new grounds. 



HARD CLAM 



In landed value hard clams have been the most 

 important commercial fishery species in New 

 York since 1953. Landings reached a maximum 

 in 1947 of nearly 11 million pounds (4,700 met- 

 ric tons) of meats, then dropped abruptly to 1954 

 (Figure 24). Since the middle 1950s landings 

 have climbed steadily from a low of about 2.5 

 million pounds (1,100 metric tons) in 1954 to 

 nearly 8 million (3,590 metric tons) in 1970. 

 Most of this increase has come from Great South 

 Bay, which in 1959 produced about 1.5 million 

 pounds (680 metric tons) of meats and in 1969 

 yielded more than 6 million pounds (2,860 met- 



602 



