FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



201 



first seek bottom, for haddock usually do so in 20 

 to 50 fathoms or deeper, seldom close to the shore, 

 and perhaps never in the littoral zone. 26 On the 

 other hand, comparatively few haddock, are 

 caught deeper than 100 fathoms in American 

 waters, 27 though they have been taken as deep as 

 120 fathoms (220 m.) on the slopes of the Faroe 

 Bank, and as deep as 164 fathoms (300 m.) off 

 Iceland. 28 



WII6HT 

 lbs 



Figure 97. — Average weight of ripe haddock of different 

 lengths; male ( — ) and female (..) at Gloucester, Mass., 

 March to May 1913. 



The haddock, like the cod, is a cold-water fish, 

 though it is not at home in temperatures quite as 

 low. Thus it is almost wholly absent off New- 

 foundland, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and off 

 Nova Scotia when the bottom water is as cold as 

 32° F.; few are caught there, generally speaking, 

 where the bottom water is colder than about 

 35-36° F. (2° C.) though good catches are some- 

 times made in temperatures as low as 34°. At 

 the opposite extreme, haddock appear to avoid 

 water warmer than about 50-52° F. Thus Vlady- 

 kov 29 reports that young haddock withdraw from 

 Halifax Harbor if the temperature near the bot- 

 tom rises above about 52°, though they can sur- 



:fl The fact that haddock fry less than 1 year old have never been reported 

 in shoal water in the Gulf or at Woods Hole corroborates European fishing 

 experiments summarized by Damas (Rapp. et Proc.-Verb., Cons. Intcmat. 

 Explor. Mer, vol. 10, 1909) and by Schmidt (ibid.). 



» Thompson, Research Bull. No. 6, Newfoundland Dept. Nat. Res., 1939, 

 p. 9. 



» Ooode and Bean (Smithsonian Contrib. Knowl., vol. 30, 1895, p. 354) list 

 a haddock from 499 fathoms but with suspicion as to the accuracy of its label. 



» Contrib. Canadian Biol., N. Ser., vol. 8, No. 29, 1934, p. 418. 



vive considerably higher temperatures for limited 

 periods. 30 It is evident from this that the entire 

 Gulf of Maine, at the depths frequented by the 

 haddock, is suitable for them so far as tempera- 

 ture is concerned, but that the upermost stratum 

 may be too warm from late summer through early 

 autumn, and too cold from late winter through 

 early spring. In exceptional years, too, such as 

 1926, the whole column of water may chill to a 

 temperature too low for their comfort in the Bay 

 of Fundy (p. 210). 



The salinities at the localities and depths where 

 haddock live in our Gulf range from about 31.5 per 

 mille inshore to a maximum of about 34.5 per mille 

 on the offshore edge of Georges Bank, with most of 

 the catch made in water more saline than about 

 32 per mille. And while they enter the bays and 

 reaches between the islands along the coast of 

 Maine in some numbers (p. 210), they never run 

 up estuaries into brackish water. Thus, haddock 

 seem to require somewhat higher salinities than 

 cod, which are sometimes caught in considerable 

 numbers where the water is below 31 per mille (as 

 in the Bras d'Or Lakes, Nova Scotia). 31 



Id general, the haddock live in rather cooler and 

 less saline waters in the American side of the 

 Atlantic than in the European, as Thompson 32 has 

 emphasized. 



The haddock is more exclusively a ground 

 fish than the cod and though they sometimes 

 pursue herring and other small fish, as cod do 

 more often, we have never heard ol haddock com- 

 ing to the surface when so engaged, events by no 

 means unusual with cod, and a characteristic phase 

 in the life of the American pollock (p. 214). 



Haddock are more selective than cod in the type 

 of bottom they frequent, being rarely caught over 

 ledges, rocks, or kelp (where cod are so plentiful), 

 or on the soft oozy mud to which hake resort. 

 They are chiefiV taken on broken ground, gravel, 

 pebbles, clay, smooth hard sand, sticky sand of 

 gritty consistency, and where there are broken 

 shells; they are especially partial to the smooth 

 areas between rocky patches. 



Food. — During their first few months, while 

 living pelagic near the surface, haddock fry 

 probably depend on copepods as cod do. After 



» At the St. Andrews Laboratory, haddock kept at a temperature varying 

 between about 57° and about 0S° F. survived for 3 to 4 months. 

 •' Needier, Contrib. Canadian Biol., N . Ser., vol. 4, No. 20, 1929, p. 10. 

 •» Research Bull., No. 6, Newfoundland Dept. Nat. Resources, 1939, p. 12. 



