514 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



(16-18 years) among 190 specimens, were only 

 26% to 28K inches long. 



In one commercial catch, probably representa- 

 tive, made off Provincetown and analyzed by 

 Olsen and Merriman, most of the fish were 4 to 10 

 years old, with only scattered fish of 11 to 16 years. 



Off southern New England, according to Olsen 

 and Merriman, a few females mature sexually 

 when they are about 18 inches long; about half at 

 22-23 inches, and all of them by the time they are 

 24-25 inches long; males mature earlier, most of 

 them by the time they have reached 15-16 inches; 

 a few not until larger. The smallest females with 

 large eggs seen in the Bay of Fundy region by 

 Clemens and Clemens were 16-18 inches long. 



General range. — Coast of North America from 

 the Strait of Belle Isle, Gulf of St. Lawrence, and 

 southeastern Newfoundland south to Delaware; M 

 common from the southern side of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence and northern Nova Scotia to New 

 Jersey. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The ocean 

 pout, known more familiarly as "conger", or 

 " congo" eel along the coast of Maine, 67 is a familiar 

 fish in the Gulf in moderate depths of water both 

 near shore and on the offshore banks; abundant 

 locally off western Nova Scotia; in the Bay of 

 Fundy; 68 all along the coasts of Maine and Massa- 

 chusetts; and on Georges Bank where considerable 

 numbers are taken both by otter trawlers and by 

 long-line fishermen. 68 Very small ones have been 

 collected off Chatham, Cape Cod; on Stellwagen 

 Bank at the mouth of Massachusetts Bay; and 

 near Mount Desert Island, Maine, by us; also in 

 the Bay of Fundy and in Passamaquoddy Bay by 

 Clemens and Clemens, 69 evidence that it breeds 

 successfully all around the Gulf. 



There seems to be a wide difference in the depth 

 zone frequented by the ocean pout in different 

 parts of the Gulf. In the Bay of Fundy some of 

 them run up into shoal water in summer and young 

 ones are to be found under stones and among sea- 

 weed between tide marks. Similarly, one is 

 always apt to catch several in a half day's flounder 

 fishing in 1 to 3 fathoms in Penobscot Bay or in 



" There is a doubtful record for North Carolina (Smith, North Carolina 

 Geological and Economic Survey, vol. 2, 1907, p. 379). 



87 Years ago we heard them called "yowlcrs" by long-line fishermen, but 

 we doubt that this name is still used for them anywhere. 



»» Clemens and Clemens (Contrib. Canadian Biol. (1918-1920) 1921, p. 69) 

 give a general account, of the ocean pout in the Bay of Fundy, and list the 

 localities there whence it has been recorded. 



» Contrib. Canadian Biol. (1918-1920), 1921, p. 77. 



Northeast Harbor, Maine, as we can bear witness. 

 And this probably applies to bays and harbors all 

 along the coast of Maine east of Cape Elizabeth. 

 But we have never seen one taken in less than 10 

 fathoms of water in the Massachusetts Bay region, 

 where most fishermen speak of it as a compara- 

 tively deep-water fish though it has been recorded 

 from Gloucester Harbor. And the ocean pouts on 

 the offshore grounds live mostly deeper than 20 to 

 30 fathoms. Thus Albatross II trawled a number 

 in the basin of the Gulf down to 90 fathoms in July 

 1931, while a large number of them have been 

 trawled on Georges Bank, at depths of 20-60 

 fathoms. 60 And in May 1950, the Albatross III 

 trawled 3 at 105 fathoms or deeper 61 on the south- 

 western slope of Georges Bank. 



Ocean pouts also frequent different types of bot- 

 tom in different localities. In Massachusetts Bay 

 they are seldom caught on the good fishing grounds 

 on stony or gravelly bottoms, that is, or about 

 ledges. But if the long line chances to run off 

 these, the portion of it that is resting on the softer 

 floor of the deeper parts of the bay often brings in 

 eelpouts and nothing else except an odd hake. 

 They are caught regularly on hard bottom, how- 

 ever, off Cape Cod and to the westward; we have 

 trawled them on rather sticky sand in Ipswich Bay 

 (22 fathoms) among good catches of hake and 

 plaice; on broken bottom at the mouth of Casco 

 Bay; on pebbles and mud in Penobscot Bay; they 

 are commonly caught on stony ground farther 

 eastward along the coast of Maine ; and Huntsman 

 describes them as taken on hard bottom in the 

 Bay of Fundy. 



In fact, the only type of bottom where we have 

 not heard of them in our Gulf is the soft oozy 

 mud with high organic content that floors certain 

 of the deeper depressions, such as the trough to 

 the west of Jeffreys Ledge. 92 



Information as to the seasonal movements of 

 ocean pouts in different parts of the Gulf is not only 

 scanty, but perplexing. In the open Bay of Fundy, 

 Huntsman describes them as working inshore in 

 spring but moving out again into deeper water in 



*> Albatross III. for example, trawled 137 of them along the southern slope of 

 Oeorges, at 31-60 fathoms, in May 1950; the dragger Eugene H trawled an 

 average of 8 pouts per haul at 26-45 fathoms, and about 2 per haul at 46-7S 

 fathoms on the south central part of Georges Bank, in late June 1951. 



11 The depth ranged from 105 fathoms to 240 fathoms along the strip of 

 bottom on which the trawl was working. 



93 They were not represented among the considerable list of fishes trawled 

 in such situations by the Atlantis in August 1936 (Bigelow and Schroeder, 

 Biol. Bulletin, vol. 76, 1939, p. 309. 



