436 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



that it continues equally late. In north European 

 waters young rosefish are produced from mid-April 

 through August, according to locality. 



Seemingly the rosefish fry are ready to sink to 

 near the bottom when they are about 25-30 mm. 

 long, for we have not taken any larger than 27 

 mm. in our tow nets, while fry of 1% inches anil 

 upwards are plentiful on bottom, both in the Bay 

 of Fundy and in deep water off southern New 

 England. And our failure to take any young 

 rosefish in our tow nets off Massachusetts Bay in 

 November or anywhere in the Gulf in winter 

 is evidence that their descent to the bottom takes 

 place early in their first autumn. 



In north European waters such of the young 

 rosefish as are fated to take to the bottom at all 

 are described as continuing pelagic in the upper 

 layers until they are 2-2% inches (to 60 mm.) long. 

 Apparently rosefish never produce their young 

 in less than 20 to 30 fathoms west or south of 

 Penobscot Bay; and while they may perhaps do 

 so in shoaler water about Mount Desert, and 

 further east along the coast of Maine, Huntsman 39 

 reports that the spawning individuals move out 

 into deep water. With this qualification, we have 

 taken pelagic young in our tow nets at so many 

 localities in the northern part of the Gulf including 

 Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island, and 

 so generally distributed, as to show that rosefish 

 produce their young wherever they may chance 

 to be, and do not gather on special grounds for the 

 purpose. Rosefish (unlike most of the fishes 

 producing buoyant eggs) also breed successfully 

 in the Bay of Fundy, their larvae having been 

 found both at the mouth of the bay and for some 

 distance up the center, during the late summer. 40 

 In the inner parts of the Gulf, our largest 

 catches of its drifting young have all been located 

 within a few miles, one side or the other, of the 

 50-fathom contour line. Examples are catches 

 of several hundred off Cape Elizabeth on July 29, 

 1912; near Cape Sable on August 11, 1914; near 

 Cashes Ledge on August 10, 1913, and on Sep- 

 tember 1, 1915; in the sink off Gloucester on 

 August 9, 1913; on Platts Bank on August 7, 1912. 

 And Goode and Bean 41 report the fry as caught 

 "by the bushel" in the trawl by the Fish Hawk at 

 55 fathoms, presumably off Cape Cod, that being 



'» Contr. Cauadiiin Biol. (1920-1921) 1922, p. 64. 



• Huntsman, Contrib. Canadian Biol. (1920-1921), 1922, p. 64. 



1 Smithsonian Contrih. Know]., vol. 30, 1895, pp. 260, 261. 



the only Fish Hawk station where the rosefish 

 is listed by them. These last catches rival the 

 swarms of young Sebastes that have been en- 

 countered between Iceland and the Faroes. 42 



On the other hand, most of our records for their 

 pelagic young outside the 100-fathom contour line 

 have been based on occasional specimens only. 

 We have seldom taken young Sebastes in the 

 western basin, though we have towed there fre- 

 quently at all seasons, and never in the deep south- 

 eastern trough of the Gulf nor in the eastern chan- 

 nel between Georges Bank and Browns. All this 

 suggests that the chief production of rosefish within 

 the Gulf of Maine occurs at about 50 fathoms. 



The presence of gravid females and ripe males 

 on Georges bank (p. 435), together with the abund- 

 ance of mature fish in the so-called "South Chan- 

 nel," shows that this general region is an important 

 center of production. And the rosefish also breeds 

 considerably farther west than this on the outer 

 edge of the continental shelf, for young fry and 

 adult females full of eggs were collected in 100 to 

 180 fathoms off the southern coast of New England 

 during the early years of the United States Fish 

 Commission. 



The shelf along outer Nova Scotia (especially 

 the depressions between the banks), the basin of 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the waters around 

 Newfoundland, must be productive nurseries, also, 

 to judge from the abundance of young drifting 

 stages that have been collected there. 43 



Importance and abundance. — The only measure 

 of abundance of rosefish in our Gulf available be- 

 fore 1935 was the number taken in a few experi- 

 mental trawl hauls, or on long lines (p. 434), for 

 there was so little demand for them that nearly 

 all of those caught incidentally were thrown back 

 by the fishermen. Thus the reported catch for 

 our Gulf was only 54,095 pounds in 1919, rising 

 to a yearly average of about 209,000 pounds for 

 the period 1931-1933. But the rosefish is a good 

 table fish, excellent for quick freezing and filleting. 

 The marketing of it as frozen fillets in 1935 so in- 

 creased the demand that the landings from the 

 Gulf of Maine, plus fish taken from southern Nova 



« Sclimidt, Stricter, Kommiss, HavundersfSgelser, No. 1, 1904, p. 9; Taning, 

 Journal du Conseil, Cons. Internat. Explor. Mer., vol. 16, 1949, p. 93-94. 



« See Dannevig (Canadian Fish. Exped. (1914-1915) 1919, pp. 12-14, figs. 

 8-10), for records of young rosefish along outer Nova Scotia and in the Qulf 

 of St. Lawrence; Frost (Newfoundland Dept. Nat. Resources, Res. Bull. 4, 

 1936, Ch. 7) for Newfoundland; also Reports, Newfoundland Fisheries Re- 

 search Commission, vol. 1, No. 4, 1932; vol. 2, No. 1, 1933; vol. 2, No. 2, 1934, 

 for details as to exact localities and dates. 



