86 



Fishery Bulletin 100(1) 



ture to age fish in many studies (Beamish, 1979; Boehlert, 

 1985; Smale and Punt, 1991). 



Red porgy form their opaque zones during the spring 

 along the southeastern United States. Both Manooch and 

 Huntsman (1977) and Harris and McGovern (1997) re- 

 ported that annulus formation occurred in red porgy dur- 

 ing March and April. We found that the opaque zone 

 formed from March through May Springtime formation 

 has also been reported from the Gulf of Mexico (Nelson, 

 1988; Hood and Johnson. 2000), from the Azores (May; Se- 

 rafim and Krug, 1995) and from Argentinian waters (Oc- 

 tober; Cotrina and Raimondo, 1997). Pajuelo and Lorenzo, 

 in their (1996) study of red porgy off the Canary Islands, 

 found that the opaque zone was formed during the sum- 

 mer (June through October). 



A comparison of the mean length at age from our study 

 and that from Harris and McGovern's ( 1997 ) study from 

 1994 (Table 3) clearly reveals that red porgy caught with 

 fishery-independent gear are much smaller at age for fish 

 3 years and older than fish caught with fishery-dependent 

 gear. Mean size at age in our study was similar to data 

 for fish 5 years and older reported by Manooch and Hunts- 

 man (1977) using otoliths, although our mean sizes were 

 smaller that those reported for their scale data. Ages 1-5 

 of our study were a mix of MARMAP samples and fishery- 

 dependent samples, which may explain why red porgy were 

 smaller for those ages than those reported by Manooch and 

 Huntsman (1977). The mean obsei-ved length at age from 

 our study were on average 23 mm smaller than the corre- 

 sponding lengths from Manooch and Huntsman (1977) for 

 ages 6 through 12 as assigned by scales. The differences may 



