FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



367 



of these traps was about 26,400 pounds following 

 a peak in August (about 53,000 pounds). And 

 they linger in numbers until well into November 

 in the Cape Cod Bay region in some years; also 

 on Georges Bank. Thus four or five traps at 

 Provincetown yielded some 30,000 pounds during 

 that month in 1915, while 2 traps at Barnstable, 

 on the southern shore of Cape Cod Bay took 4,275 

 pounds of butterfish on November 17, in 1950. 23 



They may linger equally late into the season 

 along the outer Nova Scotian coast in some years, 

 as in 1938, when two traps at Halifax yielded about 

 1,500 fish on November 12th. 24 They have been 

 caught on Georges Bank until the end of that 

 month; and in 1928 several hundred pounds were 

 reported from Nantucket Shoals as late as the last 

 week in December. 25 But they all vanish from 

 the coast by the end of December at latest, and 

 usually earlier than that, not only from our Gulf 

 but along the more southerly part of their range 

 as well. 



It seems that the southern contingents simply 

 move out to the outer edge of the continent into 

 deeper and warmer water to winter, as the mackerel 

 do also, for they are often caught by otter trawlers 

 working out on the shelf between the latitudes of 

 Chesapeake Bay and of Cape Hatteras in winter. 

 The Albatross III trawled from 1 to 202 butterfish 

 at a number of localities at depths of about 20 

 fathoms to at least 115 fathoms, between the 

 offings of Charleston, S. C, and of Cape Hatteras 

 in January and February of 1950. 



The case is not so clear for those that summer 

 off southern New England and farther north and 

 east. Butterfish, it is true, have been trawled in 

 February near the 90-fathom line abreast of the 

 eastern part of Long Island, N. Y. ; 26 also late in 

 March on the southwestern slope of Georges Bank 

 (where the dragger Eugene H had the unusually 

 large catch of about 15,000 pounds in 1951 in the 

 last week of that month) and in April and in May 

 off southern New England (p. 366). These, how- 

 ever, may not have wintered in the vicinity, but 

 may have been following along the outer part of 

 the shelf northward, before turning shoreward 

 toward their summer homes. 



" Information from John E. Vettorino, who operates these traps. 

 « McKenzie, Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Sci.. vol. 20, 1939, p. 17. 

 » See Hildebrand and Schroeder, Bull. U. S. Bur. Fish., vol. 43, 1928, 

 p. 215. for details as to their seasonal occurence in Chesapeake Bay. 

 » Three fish taken by Albatross II, February 27, 1929. 



Abundance. — During the period 1928 to 1947 27 

 the reported catch of butterfish for Massachusetts 

 ranged between 279,000 pounds and 2,250,000 

 pounds. Low points were in 1928 (about 580,000 

 pounds) and in 1946 (about 279,000 pounds); 

 high, in 1932 (about 1,479,000 pounds), and 

 during the period 1937-1940 (from about 1,226,000 

 pounds to about 2,250,000 pounds). And while 

 this includes landings for the southern shore of the 

 State as well as for the Gulf of Maine shore, the 

 fluctuations that are indicated from year to year 

 probably were paralleled north of Cape Cod. But 

 the catch may be poor at any particular locality 

 even in a good year, or vice versa. Thus the 

 North Truro traps mentioned (p. 366) took only 

 1,230 pounds of butterfish in 1948, though this 

 was a better-than average year for the Massachu- 

 setts coast as a whole. 28 



If the fish caught average about one-half pound 

 each, the Massachusetts fishery may thus be ex- 

 pected to take somewhere between 560,000 and 

 4K million individual fish. But it is not known 

 what proportion this may be of the total popula- 

 tion of butterfish in the Gulf of Maine. 



Importance. — This is one of our best table fish, 

 fat, oily, and of delicious flavor. Experience with 

 many fresh from the net as well as on the table 

 proves the old tale to be a myth that butterfish 

 have a peculiar odor. However, they were often 

 used to enrich land in planting during the first half 

 of the past century, and appreciation of the fact 

 that they are too good for this use is of recent 

 growth. Even today the demand for butterfish 

 in Boston is uncertain and the price widely vari- 

 able. As late as 1938, 1,500 fish taken in traps at 

 Halifax, Nova Scotia, were dumped for want of a 

 market. 29 



The commercial catch is made mostly in pound 

 nets, floating traps, purse seines, and otter trawls, 

 and it was thought of old that they would never 

 take a hook. But anglers have recently dis- 

 covered that butterfish will sometimes bite a 

 very small hook greedily, if baited with a bit of 

 clam or with a small piece of a sea worm (Nereis). 

 And 1,100 pounds were reported in 1945 as caught 

 along the Massachusetts coast on hand lines. 



» Statistics are not available for 1929, 1934, 1936, or 1941. 



»■ Massachusetts catch, about 676,000 pounds. 



» McKenzie, Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Sci., vol. 20, 1939, p. 17. 



