32 



Fishery Bulletin 100(1) 



unlikely that spawning occurred during these months. 

 Females with the greatest GSIs (>4%) were captured 

 during March-August, and GSIs were least ( <1.5% ) during 

 October-December (Fig. 6). Male GSIs were generally sim- 

 ilar in magnitude to female GSIs and followed the same 

 pattern. 



In the Tampa Bay area, small permit (<40 mmi were 

 present from June to November, suggesting that spawning 

 extends into the fall. In the Florida Keys, small fish (<40 

 mm) were present all year, suggesting an extended spawn- 

 ing season, recruitment from other areas with different 

 seasonal spawning patterns, or variable juvenile growth 

 rates. 



1000 

 750 



500 . I 

 250 >,\ 



oL 







xiWW 



10 



15 



All 

 n=297 



20 



25 



1000 

 750 



500 1: i!" ' 



250 



OL 



females 

 n=127 



5 10 15 20 25 



Age (yr) 



Figure 4 



Observed and predicted fork lengths (nimi from 

 the von BertalanfTy growth model for sexed and 

 unsexed permit, Trachinotiis falcatus. 



Discussion 



We obtained permit from a variety of fishery-dependent 

 and fishery-independent sources; consequently, our sample 

 is biased towards certain size classes, and the bimodal 

 size-frequency distribution of our sample probably does not 

 reflect that of the population or the Florida harvest. All the 

 small fish (<300 mm) we examined were from fishery-inde- 

 pendent sources; most large fish were from fishery-depen- 



Table 3 



The relationship of percentage mature and fork length (mm I and the relationship of percentage mature and age (years) for permit, 

 Trachiriotus falcatus. from South Florida waters. FL = fork length (mm) and AGS = age (years). Pr,„is the absolute value of ((a +6 )/c). 

 is the inflection point of the curve, and is the length or age predicted by the logistic regression at which 50''r of the permit in our 

 sample were sexually mature. Sex is a dummy variable equal to 1 for males and for females. PD is the adju.sted percentage of 

 deviance explained by the model. 



Percent female 



'■'/(1+e" 



X 



PD 



0.84 



0.09 



486 mm (males) 

 547 mm ( females i 



2.3 years (males) 

 3.1 years (females) 



