278 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



Cod Bay and on Stellwagen Bank, while the gill- 

 netters sometimes take very large ones at about 

 this same depth about Boon Island. According 

 to general report, however, few, if any, are caught 

 deeper than this in the inner parts of the Gulf 

 except in the Bay of Fundy, where they are to be 

 taken in winter on soft bottoms down to 30 to 50 

 fathoms. On Georges Bank they are taken 

 mostly between 25 fathoms and 45 fathoms; 70 

 fathoms is the deepest definite record for them 

 there of which we know. Usually the smaller fish 

 live the shoalest and the larger ones deeper. But 

 we have seen large flounders caught so often in 

 only a few feet of water that no general rule can 

 be laid down. The young fry are found chiefly 

 in the shallows. 



Most of those that are caught inshore are on 

 muddy sand, especially where this is broken by 

 patches of eelgrass. But winter flounders are 

 common enough there on cleaner sand, on clay, 

 and even on pebbly and gravelly ground. And 

 the populations on the offshore banks are on hard 

 bottom of one type or another. "When they are 

 on soft bottom they usually lie buried, all but 

 the eyes, working themselves down into the mud 

 almost instantly when they settle from swimming. 

 And flounders that live on the flats usually lie 

 motionless over the low tide to become more 

 active on the flood, when they scatter in search 

 of food. They keep near the bottom, and we 

 have never heard of them coming up to the surface 

 as the summer flounder so often does (p. 269). 

 But though they spend most of their time lying 

 motionless, they can dash for a few yards with 

 astonishing rapidity, to snap up any luckless 

 shrimp or other victim that comes within reach, 

 or to snatch a bait, as any one may see, who will 

 take the trouble to watch them on the flats on a 

 calm day. It is in this manner that they usually 

 feed, not by rooting in the sand. But flounders 

 can sometimes be attracted by stirring the bottom 

 with an oar when they are not biting, or by 

 dragging anchor to bring up small animals from 

 the mud, an old trick. 



How close inshore they may come (how shoal) 

 in any particular locality at any particular time 

 depends largely on local conditions of temperature. 

 Generally speaking, the summer temperature is 

 low enough for their comfort close in to shore and 

 up to within a few feet of the surface all around 

 the open coast line of the Gulf, and among the 



island passages, but the winter temperatures may 

 be uncomfortably low for them in enclosed situa- 

 tions locally. Tn Passamaquoddy Bay, for in- 

 stance, where the temperature of the water falls 

 close to the freezing point in winter, those that 

 are closest inshore in summer work out in winter 

 unless the year is a very mild one. Others, how- 

 ever, that are living at 15 fathoms or so remain 

 there the year around, while it is only in winter 

 that they are known to descend as deep as 30 

 to 50 fathoms in the Bay of Fundy. 49 



In shallow enclosed bays, however, or harbors, 

 where extensive flats are heated by the sun at 

 low tide in summer but are exposed to very severe 

 chilling in winter, the flounders tend to desert 

 the flats for the deeper channels during the heat 

 of summer, work back again into shoal water in 

 autumn, desert the ice-bound flats once more in 

 winter, and then work up again in spring. Duxbury 

 Bay is a case in point, also Barnstable Harbor, 

 where we have speared many of them in spring, 

 while wading on the flats. 



A migration of flounders out into deeper water 

 in the summer and back to shoal for the winter 

 is generally characteristic south of New York, 

 where the coastal waters are warmer, hence the 

 common name "winter flounder." They are very 

 scarce, for instance, in the bays of southern New 

 Jersey in summer, but very plentiful there in 

 winter. And many are caught in Chesapeake 

 Bay from November to the first of June, but none 

 are taken in shoal water there in summer or 

 early autumn. 



It has long been believed that the winter flounder 

 is one of the most stationary of our fishes, apart 

 from seasonal movements of the sorts just men- 

 tioned, and apart from a general tendency (re- 

 cently emphasized by Perlmutter) 60 for the fry 

 that are produced in bays and estuaries to work 

 offshore as they grow older. This essentially 

 stationary nature has been demonstrated recently 

 by extensive marking experiments that have been 

 carried out in Long Island Sound, along southern 

 New England, and on the coast of Maine, for 

 about 94 percent of the recaptures were made in 

 the general areas where the fish had been tagged. 

 Thus the popidation consists "of many independ- 

 ent localized stocks inhabiting the bays and 

 estuaries along the coast" as Perlmutter words it, 



«• As proved by captures in shrimp trawls, as reported by Huntsman. 

 '• Bull. Bingham Oeeanogr. Coll., vol. 11, Art. ?, 1947, p. 17 



