178 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



(494 fish) at the stations where shrimp (Pandalus) 

 were plentiful as at the stations where these were 

 scarce (114 fish), evidence that silver hake con- 

 gregate where feeding conditions are good. 42 



Reported landings throw little light on the 

 numbers of silver hake that frequent the offshore 

 rim of our Gulf, both because the otter trawls 

 used there are so large-meshed that many pass 

 through, and because most of those that are 

 caught on Georges and Browns Banks are thrown 

 overboard when the price is low. 43 Experimental 

 trawling, however, on Georges Bank, April to 

 September 1913, yielded about one-seventh as 

 many silver hake on the average (about 1,800 

 fish) as haddock (about 14,000 fish) per trip, and 

 the Albatross III caught an average of about 150 

 silver hake, running about one-half pound in 

 weight, per trawl haul, in 250 hauls on various 

 parts of Georges Bank, July, August, and Septem- 

 ber of 1948, 1949, and 1950. Thus they are 

 moderately plentiful at least over Georges Bank 

 as a whole, and there is no reason to doubt that 

 this applies to Browns Bank equally. 



These catches do not suggest any definite con- 

 centration on any one part of the bank, at 

 least for summer, except that the largest that 

 were made on its northern part were in hauls from 

 shoaler than 30 fathoms, whereas the largest 

 catches on the southern part were in hauls from 

 deeper than 60 fathoms, a difference which may 

 well have been a matter of the food supply. 44 In 

 April, however, of 1950, the silver hake were not 

 only more plentiful along the northern edge of the 

 bank (average 305 per haul) than on the southern 

 part (average 77 per haul) but so strictly confined 

 to the deeper levels that the total yield of 66 trawl 

 hauls at shoaler than 60 fathoms was only 11 fish, 

 contrasting with an average catch of 232 fish per 

 haul at 60 fathoms and deeper (25 hauls). 45 



Silver hake spawn along the entire coastal zone 

 from Cape Cod to Grand Manan, as proved by the 

 locations of the egg catches (fig. 85). The sloping 



« For further details, see Bigelow and Schroeder (Biol. Bull., vol. 76, 1939, 

 p. 308, table 1; p. 314, table 5. 



<> Reported landings, 1945-1947, ranged between 3,000 and about 33,000 

 pounds for Georges Bank, between and 6,000 pounds for Browns. 



** The average catch per haul was 262 fish from shoaler than 30 fathoms and 

 151 fish from deeper than 00 fathoms on the northern part of the bank; 90 fish 

 per haul from shoaler than 30 fathoms and 285 fish per haul from deeper than 

 60 fathoms on the southern part. 



*• Twenty-one trawl hauls at 60 fathoms and shoaler yielded none at all in 

 March; but no hauls were made in that month deeper than 60 fathoms, where 

 the silver hake doubtless were. 



sandy bottom around the northern extremity of 

 Cape Cod and off the eastern slope of the Cape 

 evidently is an important center of reproduction. 

 Thus we found an abundance of eggs off Race 

 Point on July 7, 1915; our tow nets yielded many 

 eggs at two stations off the outer shore of the Cape 

 on July 22 of the following year, when a 1 5-minute 

 tow there at 20 fathoms, with a net one meter in 

 diameter, produced approximately 25,000 larvae 

 of 3 to 7 mm., the richest haul of young fish we 

 have ever made in our Gulf. And the fish were 

 still spawning there a month later, as proved by the 

 presence of eggs. 



Other occasions when we have taken silver-hake 

 eggs in large numbers have been off Duck Island 

 near Mount Desert on July 19 and on August 18, 

 1915; near Monhegan Island, August 4, 1915; off 

 Wooden Ball Island near the mouth of Penobscot 

 Bay on August 6, 1915; and off Rye, N. H., on 

 July 23 of that same year. But we have never 

 found them in any number in Massachusetts Bay 

 though some eggs have been taken there on several 

 occasions (fig. 85). 



Unfortunately, no quantitative hauls were made 

 at any of the more productive egg stations, hence 

 the number of silver-hake eggs present in the 

 water cannot be approximated. But the vertical 

 net yielded about 190 eggs per square meter of 

 sea surface at one station in the eastern basin. 



Apparently the silver hake does not breed suc- 

 cessfully in the northern side of the Bay of Fundy 

 for neither its eggs nor its fry have ever been 

 found there. But the capture of a few eggs in 

 Petit Passage in our tow nets on June 10, 1915, 

 suggests that it may spawn on the southern side 

 of the bay as the cunner does (p. 478). And it may 

 be expected to do so along the west coast of Nova 

 Scotia, for the Canadian Fisheries Expedition 

 found eggs at several stations off outer Nova 

 Scotia, eastward to the longitude of Canso. 



The presence of silver hake on Georges Bank 

 throughout the summer is presumptive evidence 

 of local spawning, though we have taken no silver 

 hake eggs or larvae there. 



The locations where we have found its eggs 

 suggest that the silver hake, in the Gulf of Maine, 

 spawns chiefly in water shoaler than 50 fathoms. 

 But we have made one rich haul of its eggs in the 

 center of the eastern basin. And the discovery of 

 its eggs over the continental slope off Nova Scotia 



