540 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



American goosefish in the Bay of Fundy, namely 

 to 9-16 inches at a year and a half; to 14^-18% 

 inches when 2% years old; and to about 21 inches 

 at 3 years of age. 



Few goosefish mature on either side of the 

 Atlantic until they are 30 inches long, or longer. 78 



General range. — Coast of eastern North America 

 from the southern and eastern parts of the Grand 

 Banks of Newfoundland, and the northern side of 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence 79 southward to North 

 Carolina, in shoal and moderately deep water; 

 also reported (as L. piscatorius) off the Barbadoes 

 at 209 fathoms, on the Yucatan Bank, southern 

 part of the Gulf of Mexico, at 84 fathoms, 80 and 

 off Cape Frio, Brazil, in lat. 22°56' S., 81 if these 

 southern specimens actually belonged to the 

 same species. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — This is a 

 familiar fish in the Gulf of Maine both along shore 

 and on the outer fishing banks. It has been 

 recorded in print from the west coast of Nova 

 Scotia (St. Mary Bay) and from various localities 

 in the Bay of Fundy, where, according to Hunts- 

 man, large ones are frequently taken on long lines, 

 or found stranded on the beach. It is well known, 

 if not abundant, all along the coast of Maine, and 

 we once caught 8 (all large) in Ipswich Bay in one 

 haul of a beam trawl only 8 feet wide. In Massa- 

 chusetts Bay goosefish are the most common on 

 the smooth bottom south of Boston; many enter 

 Duxbury Bay (p. 546) ; and they are so numerous 

 in Cape Cod Bay that one can hardly walk the 

 beach for an afternoon without finding a jawbone 

 bleaching on the sand, which applies equally all 

 along the outer shores of Cape Cod. Fishermen 

 speak of them as common on and about Stellwagen 

 Bank, also. And we have trawled them in the 

 deep basin of the Gulf. 



Goosefish formed about 1 percent (in numbers 

 of individuals) of the fishes of all kinds taken by 

 certain otter trawlers in the South Channel and 

 on Georges Bank in 1913. And most of the trawl 

 hauls that we have seen made there subsequently 



" The smallest ripe males of the North European species seen by Fulton 

 were 26-27 inches long, the smallest ripe females 30 inches. 



" PeDnant's (Arch. Zoo]., vol. 1, 1784, p. cxci) report of "the Lophius pisca- 

 torius or common angler" in Hudson Bay seems to have been based on a 

 sculpin (for history of the case, see Connolly, Bull. 3, Biol. Bd. Canada, 

 1920, p. 7). And we think it likely that this applies also to the "Lophius 

 laevigatus" reported by Weiz (Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 10, 1866, 

 p. 269) from Okak. northern Labrador. 



10 Ooode and Bean, Smithsonian Contrib. Knowl., vol. 30, 1895, p. 486. 



« Regan, British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Exped. (1910), Zool., vol. 1, No. 

 1, 1914, p. 23. 



in depths of 60 to 100 fathoms have brought in 

 from 1 to 40 of them. 



They do not show any evident preference for 

 any particular depth zone in the inner parts of the 

 Gulf between tide mark and 100 fathoms or so, 

 and the Albatross III found them generally dis- 

 tributed from 22-30 fathoms down to at least as 

 deep as 150-160 fathoms both on Georges Bank 

 and off southern New England to the westward, 

 in May 1950. 82 Our failure to take any in the 

 bowl between Jeffreys Ledge and the coast sug- 

 gests that they may avoid the very softest mud 

 bottoms. And it is likely that a rather definite 

 concentration of them in depths of 26 to 45 fathoms 

 on the southwestern part of Georges Bank in June 

 1951, when the Eugene H caught an average of 

 about 5 per haul there, but only 1 per haul at 

 46-65 fathoms, was a matter of the food supply, 

 not of the depth. 



Goosefish are said to be as common on Browns 

 Bank as they are on Georges, also along the outer 

 Nova Scotian coast and banks as far as Ban- 

 quereau, though they may not be as common in- 

 shore there as they are in the Gulf of Maine. 

 They must be generally distributed in the southern 

 side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence also, to judge 

 from the localities of record there, and they have 

 been reported from Anse des Dunes and from 

 near Mingan on the north shore. 83 They have 

 also been trawled at a few localities on the south- 

 ern and eastern part of the Grand Banks. 84 And 

 a 4-inch specimen was brought back from the 

 Grand Bank hi 1856. 85 But this seems to be its 

 northern limit in our side of the open Atlantic, 

 for they have not been reported from the east 

 coast of Newfoundland, or reliably from the outer 

 coast of Labrador (see footnote 79, p. 540). 



Goosefish are common westward and southward 

 also, as far as North Carolina. We have seen 

 many stranded in winter a few miles north of Cape 

 Hatteras, both in Pamlico Sound and on the out- 

 side beach, and Smith M described it as so plentiful 



11 Catches of 1 to 34 per haul. 



M See Cox (Contrib. Canadian Biol. [1902-1905], 1907, p. 90), Comish 

 (Contrib. Canadian Biol. [1906-1910], 1912, p. 81), and Connolly (Bull. 3, 

 Biol. Bd. Canada, 1920, p. 7) for Nova Scotian and Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 localities; the Annual Reports of the Newfoundland Fishery Research Com- 

 mission, vol. 1, No. 4, 1932, p. 110, for additional records for the Nova Scotian 

 Banks. 



>' Kept. Newfoundland Fish. Res. Comm., vol. 1, No. 4, 1932, p. 110, 

 Sta. 17; vol. 2, No. 1, 1933, p. 127, Sta. 97; vol. 2, No. 2, 1935, p. 116, Sta. 204, 

 205, 274. 



» Ooode and Bean, Smithsonian Contrib. Knowl., vol. 30, 1895, p. 486. 



«• North Carolina Econ. Qeol. Surv., vol. 2, 1907, p. 399. 



