FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



413 



light blue and with a light-blue streak following 

 the base of the dorsal fin. The head is silvery, 

 marked with irregular dusky blotches; the beUy 

 is white. The dorsal, caudal, and anal fins are 

 dusky, flecked with blue; the pectoral fins of a 

 brownish tinge; the ventrals white and bluish, and 

 very slightly dusky; the iris silvery; the pupil 

 black. 



Size.- — The scup is said to reach a length of 18 

 inches and a weight of 3 to 4 pounds, but adults 

 usually run only up to about 12 to 14 inches, and 

 weigh only 1 to 2 pounds. 



Habits. — Scup are inshore from early April at 

 the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, and from early 

 May northward to southern Massachusetts. Most 

 of them withdraw from the coast late in October, 

 though some few linger through November, and an 

 occasional fish into December even as far north as 

 the vicinity of Woods Hole. 



It has been known for the past 20 years or more 

 that many scup winter off Virginia and off north- 

 ern North Carolina, in depths of 20 to 50 fathoms, 

 where large commercial catches are made yearly 

 by otter trawlers from January to April," with a 

 few as deep as 90 fathoms or so. And marking 

 experiments have proved that some of the scup 

 that summer along southern Massachusetts mi- 

 grate southward hi autumn as far as to the offings 

 of Chesapeake Bay and of northern North Carolina 

 for the winter, at least in some years, and vice 

 versa. 46 



Scup have, however, been taken during the 

 past few winters in depths of 45 to 70 fathoms off 

 southern New England, in numbers large enough 

 to show that part of the northern contingent 

 of the species simply moves offshore in autumn, 

 to come inshore again in spring. 47 



« Reported catches tor 1930-1931 (the oily winter for which statistics are 

 readily available) were 9,684 pounds in December. 495,312 pounds in January, 

 637,595 pounds in February, 653,276 pounds in March, and 76,322 pounds in 

 April (Pearson, Investigational Report, No. 10, U. S. Bur. Fish., 1932, p. 14, 

 table 2). In February 1930 Albatross II trawled three off Chesapeake Bay in 

 93 fathoms. 



*• One scup, tagged in summer near Woods Hole, was recaptured in winter 

 off northern Virginia; two off Chesapeake Bay; and one off northern North 

 Carolina (Neville, Fishery Circular No. 18, U. S. Bur. Fish., 1935, p. 3, fig. 3). 

 Three tagged in winter off Virginia were recaptured in summer along New 

 Jersey. 



« We counted from 1 to 40 scup per haul in 17 trawl hauls out of a total 

 of 44 hauls, on the Eugene H off Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts, 

 Jan. 27 to Feb. 3, 1950, at depths of 47 to 67 fathoms; a dragger that caught 

 7 to 30 bushels in 3 hauls nearby at the time reported catches of 2,000 to 5,000 

 poutids as sometimes made in the vicinity at that same season; and the 

 Priscilla V reported taking 445 pounds on Jan. 12, also 1, 230 pounds on Jan. 

 21, 1950. at 52 to 54 fathoms, some 75 to 82 miles south of No Mans Land off 

 Marthas Vineyard. The Eugene H Ashing near Hudson Gorge in about 

 62 fathoms, caught 30,000 pounds of scup on a trip April 1-6, 1953. 



Differences in the locations where the largest 

 catches are made in cool winters and in warm 

 make it likely that a preference for water at least 

 as warm as about 45° F. is the factor that de- 

 termines how far seaward the scup move off any 

 part of the coast in any particular winter. 18 And 

 they are so sensitive to low temperatures that 

 large numbers have been known to perish (both 

 large ones and small) in sudden cold spells in 

 shallow water. 



It appears that different bodies of scup move 

 inshore successively in spring, for in 1950 the 

 Albatross III took 2,700 scup in 15 hauls at 45 

 to 55 fathoms, in the Hudson Gorge, on May 

 11-18, which is one or two weeks after the earliest 

 scup ordinarily appear inshore near Nsw York. 

 And the fact that scup are more plentiful in June 

 and July than in May points in the same direction. 



It has been said that the first fish to arrive in 

 spring are the large adults, with the immature 

 fish following later. But there is no definite 

 rule in this regard. 



During their summer stay inshore, the scup 

 tend to hug the coast so closely that a line drawn 

 5 or 6 miles beyond the outermost headlands 

 would probably enclose the great majority of the 

 total population at that time of year. 



Scup usually congregate in schools. The young 

 fry come close in to the land in only a few feet of 

 water. Large fish, however, are seldom caught 

 in summer in water shallower than 1 or 2 fathoms 

 (occasionally at the surface), or deeper than 15 to 

 20 fathoms. They prefer smooth to rocky bot- 

 tom, which results in a distribution so local that 

 one trap at Manchester, on the North Shore of 

 Massachusetts Bay, took small numbers of scup 

 in 1885, 1886, and 1887, while another trap close 

 by did not yield as much as one fish. They are 

 bottom feeders in the main, seldom rising far 

 above the ground, the adults preying on crusta- 

 ceans (particularly on amphipods) as well as 

 on annelid worms, hydroids, sand-dollars, young 

 squid, and in fact on whatever invertebrates the 

 particular bottom over which they five may 

 afford. They also eat fish fry to some extent, 

 such free-floating forms as crustacean and mollus- 

 can larvae, appendicularians, and copepods. The 

 young feed chiefly on the latter and on other small 

 Crustacea. Adult scup, like most other fish, 

 cease feeding during spawning time, for which 



<■ For details, see Neville. Fishery Circular No. 18, U. S. Bur. Fish., 1935. 



