202 



Fishery Bulletin 101(2) 



bluefish suggests that those spawned during the summer 

 might remain at sea and never enter estuaries (Kendall 

 and Walford, 1979). Thus, it is useful to assess whether YOY 

 bluefish use ocean habitats. To this end, the purpose of this 

 paper is to summarize data from extensive collections and 

 multiple sources for YOY bluefish along the coast of New 

 Jersey in order to help determine the relative contributions 

 of oceanic habitats by comparing them with an adjacent 

 estuary. Further, we conducted tag and recapture studies to 

 begin to further assess habitat use and movements. 



Materials and methods 



Study sites 



The study area encompassed four distinct regions along 

 the New Jersey coast (Fig. 1). First, the inner continental 

 shelf (5-27 m), from the northern coast of New Jersey to 

 the mouth of Delaware Bay (Fig. 1). Much of this area 

 .slopes gently offshore; however, the surface has a com- 

 plex topography, as evidenced by convoluted isobaths 

 (Uchupi, 1970). At the margins of the study area are two 

 major shelf valleys, Hudson and Delaware. In between are 

 numerous linear sand ridges (McBride and Moslow, 1991). 

 Bottom salinities and temperatures in this region during 

 the study period ranged from 27.1%c to 33.4%c and from 

 7.7° to 25.4°C, respectively. The second region was located 

 in northern New Jersey along a 25-km stretch of ocean 

 beach between Deal and Manasquan Inlet (Fig. 1). These 

 beaches are divided at frequent intervals by groins. The 

 third region consisted of sampling sites located in southern 

 New Jersey on relatively undeveloped (few groins) beaches 

 in the vicinity of Little Egg Inlet and more developed 

 (abundant groins) beaches on the central portion of Long 

 Beach Island (Fig. 1). The sandy beaches in both of these 

 areas are steeply sloping and exposed to high wave energy 

 (wave heights of 0.3-1.2 m and durations of 5-9 seconds 

 and tidal range is approximately 1.4 m, Nordstrom et al., 

 1977). Salinities on these beaches during the study period 

 were 26-32%f , and temperatures ranged from 13° to 27°C. 

 A fourth region comprised estuarine beach sites in Great 

 Bay and Little Egg Harbor (Fig. 1). These sites had sandy 

 bottoms, a shallow profile with sandy fringing beaches, and 

 a 1.1-m tidal range typical of these bays (Able et al., 1999). 

 Salinities were 22-32%< and temperatures were 10.5-30°C 

 during the sampling period. 



Sampling techniques 



Young-of-year bluefish were sampled as part of several pro- 

 grams off the coast of New Jersey during 1995-98 (Fig. 1, 

 Table 1). In all surveys, YOY were defined by characteristic 

 lengths (<200 mm FL) from earlier studies in the region (see 

 Able and Fahay, 1998). Individuals from inner continental 

 shelf waters were collected by the New Jersey Department 

 of Environmental Protection with 20-min duration otter 

 trawl (30-m head rope, 6-mm codend) tows during daylight 

 in stratified random sampling over an area of 4600 km- 

 from the entrance to New York Harbor to the entrance 



Barnegat 

 Inlet 





a 



D 



D 



n 



Little Eggr^ 

 A Harbor *— ' 



^ n 



Great v-/ 

 Bay 



D 



__» Long Beach 

 ^t^ Island 



« Little Egg 



• Inlet 



Atlantic 



^ Ocean 



Figure 1 



Study area along the Atlantic Ocean coast of New 

 Jersey (A). Strata (5-10, 11-20, 21-27 m) for inner 

 continental shelf collections, and location of ocean and 

 estuarine beach sampling sites are indicated, includ- 

 ing northern New Jersey ocean beaches (sites num- 

 bered 1-28 from north to south MB) and southern New 

 Jersey ocean and estuarine beaches (C) for 1998-2000. 

 Additional information concerning these sites can be 

 found in Table 1. 



of Delaware Bay in depths from 5 to 27 m (Byrne-). This 

 sampling occurred seasonally and bluefish were available 

 during the June, August, and October cruises. 



Byrne. D. 1994. Stock assessment of New Jersey's nearshore 

 recreational fisheries resources. In Proceedings of the work- 

 shop on the collection and u.se of trawl survey data for fisheries 

 management iT IJerger, ed.), p. 36-42. Atlantic States Marine 

 Fisheries Commission, 1444 Eye St. NW, 6"' Floor, Washington 

 D.C. 20005. 



