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FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



St. Mary's Bay, for example, in 1910-1913 and 

 again in 1938, though few were taken during the 

 intervening years. 17 But they appear only irregu- 

 larly and in small numbers on the New Brunswick 

 shore of the Bay of Fundy, though they have been 

 taken repeatedly in Passamaquoddy Bay. 



The diminution in the numbers of butterfish, 

 following from south and west to east and north 

 around the coast line of the Gulf may be illus- 

 trated by catches for 1938 a fairly representative 

 year 18 when catches in pound nets and floating 

 traps around the shores of Barnstable, Plymouth, 

 and Essex Counties, plus those landed in Boston 

 and Gloucester by seiners and trawlers fishing off- 

 shore, amounted to 943,500 pounds, whereas only 

 about 18,000 pounds were reported from the entire 

 coast from the Massachusetts line to and including 

 the region of Casco Bay, and none at all from 

 farther east than that along the coast of Maine. 



Butterfish also appear in the Nantucket Shoals 

 region and on Georges Bank in summer, often in 

 good numbers. About 1,000 fish, for example, 

 were caught on Georges during one trawling trip 

 in 1913; and otter trawlers accounted for nearly 

 two-thirds of the total landings for Massachusetts 

 in 1938, about one-half of those for 1945, most of 

 which probably came from these offshore grounds. 

 We have heard no rumor of them on Browns Bank 

 but doubtless they occur there, for "fair quantities" 

 usually visit Halifax Harbor in summer and 

 autumn, according to McKenzie, 19 in fact, he cites 

 one instance when about 1,500 of them were taken 

 from two traps there in one day. And they are 

 said to be common eastward as far as Canso. 20 

 But this appears to be the normal limit to their 

 range, for strays, only, have been taken in the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence (p. 365), or on the Newfound- 

 land coast (p. 365). 



Season. — Butterfish are warm season fish along 

 our coasts; we refer of course to the temperature 

 of the water, not to that of the air. They may 

 appear off Rhode Island by the last half of April 

 and about Woods Hole by the middle of May, 

 though they are not plentiful in the Woods Hole 

 region until in June. And it is likely that these 

 early comers move in across the shelf from off- 

 shore, rather than that they have followed along 



" McKenzie, Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Sci., vol. 20. 1939, p. 14. 

 18 This is the most recent year for which butterfish have been mentioned 

 in the statistical breakdown by counties for Maine. 

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

 " Cornish, Contributions to Canadian Biology (1902-5) 1907, p. 85. 



the coast, for from April 8 to 12, 1953, the Eugene 

 H trawled 22,000 pounds of butterfish, close to 

 bottom, in 85 fathoms south to Martha's Vine- 

 yard, and in 1950 the Albatross III trawled 10 to 

 723 butterfish per haul, May 11 to 18, along the 

 40-80 fathom zone off southern New England, 

 where small commercial catches were also being 

 made at the time. During the season of 1913 21 

 the first butterfish were reported on Georges Bank 

 June 5 to 8. But it is not until the end of that 

 month or early in July that they are plentiful 

 anywhere north of the elbow of Cape Cod. The 

 earliest catches, for example, in one set of traps 

 off North Truro, on Cape Cod Bay, were not made 

 until June 26-28th in 1947, or until July 29th 

 in 1948, but on May 29, 1951. From that time 

 on there are butterfish in the inner parts of the 

 Gulf throughout the late summer and autumn, 

 also on Georges Bank. 



The following tabulation of the catches made 

 in one set of 8 traps at North Truro, on the east- 

 ern shore of Cape Cod Bay, 22 suggests that butter- 

 fish are likely to be the most numerous there in 

 August, at least in good years, and rather more 

 numerous in September and in October than in 

 July. But they are exceedingly irregular and un- 

 predictable in then appearances and their disap- 

 pearances. Thus the traps just mentioned yielded 

 butterfish on only one day in July, 2 days in 

 August, 3 days in September, and 3 days in 

 October in the years 1948 and 1949 combined, 

 though catches as great as 2,856 to 7,490 pounds 

 were made on three of these occasions. The ap- 

 proximate catches, in pounds, for the years 1946 

 through 1950 follow: 



Maximum Minimum Average Total 



July 5,900 1,760 8,810 



August 53,101 11,450 57,260 



September 15,100 90 5,850 29,250 



October 26,440 120 8,425 42,130 



In some years the peak for this locality may not 

 come until October, as in 1947, when the catch by 

 this set of traps was between five times and six 

 times as great during that month (about 14,500 

 pounds) as during the next most productive month 

 (July, about 2,300 pounds; August, about 2,500 

 pounds). Similarly, in 1950 the October catch 



21 This is the only year for which lists are available of the number of fish 

 of all species taken on Georges Bank by certain trawlers. 



" Information supplied by the Pond Village Cold Storage Co. of North 

 Truro, Mass. 



