Abstract.- King mackerel Scom- 

 beromorus cavalla were tagged and 

 released from southeastern Florida, 

 the Florida Keys, and South Carolina 

 from 1975 through 1979 to document 

 spatial and temporal movement pat- 

 terns. Distance traveled by tagged 

 king mackerel was not significantly 

 related to size (fork length), but was 

 correlated with number of days-at- 

 large. King mackerel show a cyclical 

 pattern of movement along the At- 

 lantic seaboard of the southeastern 

 United States and coastal waters of 

 the Gulf of Mexico. A migratory be- 

 havior may exist in which fish return 

 to the area of release over a period 

 of up to 5 years. The number of fish 

 moving away from the area of re- 

 lease and their direction of move- 

 ment depend on whether the fish are 

 associated with Atlantic or Gulf 

 waters. Some king mackerel may be 

 residents in southeastern Florida 

 waters. The seasonal overlap be- 

 tween the two recognized stocks 

 of king mackerel in southeastern 

 Florida is estimated to be as high as 

 29.4-41.8%. 



Movement Patterns and 



Stock Affinities of King Mackerel 



in the Southeastern United States 



Frederick C. Sutter III 



Florida Marine Research Institute, Department of Natural Resources 

 100 Eighth Avenue SE. St. Petersburg. Florida 33701-5095 



Roy O. Williams 



Florida Marine Fisheries Commission, 2540 Executive Circle West 

 Suite 106, Tallahassee. Florida 32301 



Mark F. Godcharles 



National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA 



9450 Koger Boulevard, St. Petersburg, Florida 33702 



Manuscript accepted 19 October 1990. 

 Fishery Bulletin, U.S. 89:315-324 (1991). 



Historically, the king mackerel Scom- 

 beromorus cavalla has supported im- 

 portant recreational and commercial 

 fisheries in the southeastern United 

 States (Finucane et al. 1986, Brusher 

 and Palko 1987). Concern over declin- 

 ing king mackerel abundance has re- 

 sulted in state and federal regulation 

 of recreational and commercial king 

 mackerel fisheries. As part of the 

 management strategy of this resource, 

 two migratory groups ('stocks') of 

 king mackerel have been established 

 for the southeastern United States 

 (SE U.S.): an Atlantic stock and a 

 Gulf of Mexico stock (Williams and 

 Godcharles 1984). From 1 November 

 through 31 March, the range for the 

 Gulf stock includes the entire Gulf of 

 Mexico, extending up the Florida 

 east coast to the Volusia/Flagler 

 county line (Fig. 1, line A). Fish found 

 north of this line are considered to be 

 Atlantic stock. From 1 April through 

 31 October, the boundary for the 

 Gulf/Atlantic stocks is the Collier/ 

 Monroe county line on Florida's west 

 coast (Fig. 1, line B). A 'transition' 

 zone, therefore, is created along the 

 southern Florida coast (Fig. 1, 

 shaded area). 



Stock definitions were largely gen- 

 erated from a cooperative tagging 

 program by the Florida Department 



of Natural Resources (FDNR) and 

 National Marine Fisheries Service 

 (NMFS) to study king mackerel re- 

 sources in the SE U.S. Although 

 these data have been utilized in vari- 

 ous resource assessments by state 

 and federal agencies, little of this in- 

 formation has been formally pub- 

 lished. In this paper, we describe the 

 tag returns with respect to temporal 

 and spatial movement patterns and 

 stock affinities of S. cavalla. 



Materials and methods 



A total of 12,493 fish were tagged in 

 four spatial/temporal regions along 

 the SE U.S. from 1975 through 1979 

 (Table 1, Fig. 1). King mackerel were 

 captured by fishermen, under con- 

 tract to FDNR, using hook-and-line. 

 Biologists from FDNR measured 

 fork length (FL) of the fish and ex- 

 amined them for any debilitating in- 

 juries. Fish in good condition were 

 placed ventral-side-up in a wet tag- 

 ging cradle covered with plastic and 

 foam rubber. A 7- to 10-mm longi- 

 tudinal incision was made along the 

 anterior portion of the abdomen per- 

 mitting the insertion of an internal 

 anchor tag with an external plastic 

 streamer. Tagged fish were returned 

 to the water, usually within 25-35 



315 



