204 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



studies of the age-length relationship among 

 young haddock of different sizes near Halifax, 

 Nova Scotia, have shown, similarly, that their 

 average rate of growth may differ considerably 

 within short distances in Nova Scotia waters. 42 



The oldest haddock noted by Needier, one about 

 28% inches (72 cm.) long, taken off Ingonish, Nova 

 Scotia, was in its 14th year. But the largest, 

 about 30% inches (78 cm.) long, taken off Campo- 

 bello Island at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, 

 was in its tenth year, only. 



In general, Gulf of Maine haddock grow most 

 rapidly in late summer and early autumn, when 

 the temperature of the water is highest at the 

 depths in which they live, but there is much varia- 

 tion in this respect from place to place and from 

 year to year, as various authors have noted. 



Shuck 43 describes the haddock of New England 

 waters as maturing sexually at 3 or 4 years, when 

 they weigh 2 or 3 pounds. And the smallest 

 sexually active specimens found by Welsh among 

 1,300 haddock were 2 females of about 20 inches 

 long each; i. e., about 4 years old. Most of the 

 Nova Scotia haddock also spawn first in their 

 fourth or fifth year, according to Needier, as some 

 do in Icelandic waters, also. This supports 

 Duff's M view that the slackening of the rate of 

 growth at 4 or 5 years of age, which she observed, 

 reflects the first ripening of the sexual organs. In 

 the eastern Atlantic, mature haddock have been 

 reported as small as 9 inches. And almost all the 

 fish spawn there by the end of their third year. 



General range. — Both sides of the North Atlantic. 

 On the American coast haddock are the most 

 abundant from the southern part of the Grand 

 Bank and from the more easterly of the Nova 

 Scotian Banks to Cape Cod. In winter they are 

 taken southward to New York and New Jersey, 

 and they have been recorded in deep water as far 

 southward as the latitude of Cape Hatteras. But 

 the species as a whole is so much more closely 

 confined to waters east of Marthas Vineyard 

 than is the cod, that in 1947, for example, only 

 158,992 pounds of haddock were caught off New 

 York and New Jersey, contrasting with 2,962,559 

 pounds of cod for that part of the coast. 45 Neither 



« Contrib. Canadian Biol. Fish., N. Ser., vol. 8, No. 29, 1934, p. 415, fig. 2. 



* 3 Unpublished manuscript. 



" Contr. Canadian Biol. (1914-1915) 1916, p. 39. 



48 This is exclusive of 4,110,508 pounds of haddock and 739,759 pounds of cod 

 landed at New York City, most if not all of which were caught in waters to 

 the east of Marthas Vineyard. 



does the range of the haddock extend as far north 

 as that of the cod. Small catches are made in the 

 southern side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence; also 

 along its north shore both in the St. Lawrence 

 estuary and nearing the Strait of Belle Isle, and 

 a scattering are taken among the cod along the 

 west coast of Newfoundland. 46 And while the 

 experimental trawling campaigns of the Newfound- 

 land Fishery Research Laboratory have shown 

 that there is a distinct and extensive stock of 

 haddock on the southern part of the Grand Banks 

 region 47 very few are caught farther north along 

 Newfoundland, though some fish have been re- 

 ported from the Strait of Belle Isle, likewise from 

 West Greenland. 48 And haddock are unknown in 

 the icy waters along the outer coast of Labrador, 

 where great quantities of cod are caught every 

 summer. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine.- — Haddock are 

 very plentiful all around the open Gulf, as well as 

 on all the offshore banks, especially on Georges 

 where they greatly out-number the cod. This is, 

 in fact, one of the two species that now rank at the 

 top among Gulf of Maine fishes, from the com- 

 mercial standpoint; the rosefish is the other (p. 430). 

 Good haddock grounds, it is true, are less extensive 

 close inshore and more scattered there than good 

 cod grounds, haddock being confined for the most 

 part to depths greater than 5 to lOfathoms (p. 200), 

 and being more selective in types of bottoms they 

 frequent (p. 201). But the number of individual 

 haddock that inhabit the coastal belt of the Gulf 

 within 15 to 20 miles of the land may be as great 

 as the number of individual cod, for while the 

 yield of the inshore small boat fisheries has run 

 only one-third to one-half as great in pounds for 

 haddock as for cod, in Maine and Massachusetts, 

 in years for which data are readily available, 49 and 

 one-half to three-fourths as great for haddock as 

 for cod in the Bay of Fundy, 50 this discrepancy may 



<> For locations, see Needier, Contrib. Canadian Biol., N. Ser., vol. 6, No. 

 10, 1930, p. 5 [245], fig. 1. 



" Thompson, Research Bull. No. 6, Dept. Nat. Resources Newfoundland, 

 1939, p. 7. 



<• Jensen and Hansen (UndersjSgelser over den Gr0nlandske Torsk, p. 52, 

 1930). 



*• Between 14 and 15 million pounds of cod and about 5 million pounds of 

 haddock in 1919; between 6 and 7 million pounds of cod and about 3 million 

 pounds of haddock in 1924, these being the only two recent years when the 

 yield of the small boat inshore fishery was listed separately in the published 

 statistics of the catch. 



10 Bay of Fundy catch, about 7 million pounds of cod and about 5 million 

 pounds of haddock in 1919; about 6 million pounds of cod and about 4 million 

 pounds of haddock in 1946, years that seem to have been fairly representative. 

 The inshore catches for western Nova Scotia are not separated from the off- 

 shore catches in the published statistics. 



