206 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



Jeffreys Ledge north of Cape Ann, Stellwagen 

 Bank at the mouth of Massachusetts Bay, and the 

 several areas of "haddock bottom" off Chatham, 

 Cape Cod. Small isolated rocky banks, such as 

 Cashes and Platts, usually yield fewer haddock 

 than cod, but in recent years of intensive fishing, 

 haddock have been taken in numbers even on 

 these so-called "cod grounds," as appears from 

 the following table (landings to the nearest 1,000 

 pounds) : 



i The reported landings from Cashes Ledge for 1919 were so small as to 

 suggest some error. 



Spawning grounds. — One part or another of 

 Georges Bank appears to be the most productive 

 spawning ground for haddock off the American 

 coast, one of the most productive anywhere, for 

 that matter. And Walford's detailed studies 60 

 have shown that haddock may spawn anywhere on 

 the Bank eastward from Nantucket Shoals, except 

 on Georges Shoals where the water is not deep 

 enough. In most years there is a definite spawning 

 center on the northeastern part of the bank, just 

 east of Georges Shoals; Walford found this to be 

 the case in 1931 and in 1932, corroborating our 

 experiences on the Albatross I in 1920, when we 

 found haddock eggs in great abundance 61 over an 

 area there of at least 1,600 square miles. In 1932, 

 there was a second spawning center in the so- 

 called South Channel, where there seems to have 

 been little spawning the year before. That 

 Browns Bank, also, is a productive spawning 

 center is proved both by Walford's studies, and by 

 the fact that a fair proportion of the many gadoid 

 eggs we towed there on the Albatross I in Aprd 

 1920 were far enough advanced in development to 

 show a haddock parentage. 



Our own egg records, added to reports from the 

 hatcheries and from local fishermen, show that 

 haddock also spawn here and there, along the 

 coastal belt from the entrance to the Bay of Fundy 

 to Cape Cod, though in much smaller numbers 

 than on Georges and Browns. 



» Bull. U. S. Bur. Fish., vol. 49, Bull. 29, 1938, pp. 3-12. 

 •• Captures of ripe fish, male and female, in the trawl established the 

 identity of these eggs as haddock, not cod. 



The more productive of the inshore spawning 

 grounds which are neither as sharply circumscribed 

 as those of the cod, nor as regularly occupied, are 

 along the outer (eastern) and northern slopes of 

 Stellwagen Bank, whence many eggs have been 

 obtained for the Gloucester hatchery; the coastal 

 belt between Cape Ann and Cape Elizabeth, 

 especially off Ipswich Bay; the vicinity of the Isles 

 of Shoals; about Boon Island; and off Wood 

 Island, Maine. 



Breeding haddock are plentiful east of Cape 

 Elizabeth in some years and scarce or altogether 

 absent there in other years, or for terms of years. 

 Thus, Captain Hahn, former superintendent of 

 the Boothbay hatchery, has informed us that 

 spawning haddock came into Boothbay Harbor in 

 abundance and into Linekin Bay in April and May 

 of 1912, while gill-netters made large catches in the 

 general vicinity, but that spawning haddock did 

 not approach this part of the coast at any time 

 during the next 12 years in numbers large enough 

 either to support any extensive fishery there, or to 

 provide the hatchery with more than a few eggs. 



Spawning haddock have also been reported to us 

 from the neighborhood of Mount Desert Island 

 and off Cutler, Maine, while we found a few cod- 

 haddock eggs near Petit Manan Island on April 12, 

 1920. 62 But there is no reason to suppose that any 

 considerable body of haddock spawn along the 

 Maine coast east of Mount Desert, nor on the 

 northern side of the Bay of Fundy, where neither 

 eggs, larvae, nor young fry have ever been seen. 

 However, our capture of a few haddock eggs 63 and 

 others in the younger "cod-haddock" stage (p. 203) 

 in Petit Passage on June 10, 1915, proves that 

 some spawn on the Nova Scotian side of the bay 

 near its entrance; a few do so on the coastal 

 banks along the western shores of Nova Scotia 

 southward to Cape Sable according to general 

 report, and we have taken a few cod or haddock 

 eggs on German Bank in our tow nets in May. 



Turning, now, southward and westward, we 

 learn that gill-netters sometimes get good fares of 

 ripe fish off Boston Harbor, though no great body 

 spawns in the inner part of Massachusetts Bay, 

 and few if any on the cod-spawning grounds off 



« In a previous report (Bulletin, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Har- 

 vard College, vol. 59, 1917, p. 258) we recorded eggs taken along this part of the 

 coast in June as "cod-haddock", but fresh examination of the material shows 

 that they might equally have belonged to the witch tiounder, none being 

 sufficiently advanced in incubation to show the pigment. 



•' Far enough advanced to show the pigment in its distinctive arrangement. 



