MANOOCH and BARANS: DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE OF TOMTATE 



ceeding 60,000 in 1971 and 1975 for the region 

 according to FAO Yearbooks. If, as we suspect, 

 most of these catches were tomtate, the Cam- 

 peche stock has been much more exploited than 

 the Atlantic for the past 10 yr. 



Regional harvest of tomtates by hook and line 

 will probably remain low. Recreational anglers 

 will continue to catch small numbers, and com- 

 mercial handliners will continue to regard H. 

 aurolineatum as "trash fish" or bait. Any in- 

 crease in the harvest will probably involve an 

 expansion of a trawl fishery off South Carolina, 

 Georgia, and northeast Florida. 



Prior to development of any U.S. groundfish 

 trawl fishery for tomtate, the possibility of habi- 

 tat destruction by trawl gear should be investi- 

 gated. Some bottom trawl harvest techniques 

 may have detrimental effects on the substrate 

 community in which tomtate are most abundant. 

 Destruction or removal of the sponge/coral in- 

 vertebrates and crab species, or damage to Ocu- 

 lina coral beds, may indirectly reduce future 

 yields of tomtate and other fish species. 



Also, during several seasons trawls may catch 

 juveniles of a species important to both commer- 

 cial and sport fisheries prior to their recruitment 

 to harvest by hook and line. Bottom trawling for 

 tomtate in "live bottom" areas would catch large 

 numbers of small, commercially unimportant 

 fish species and invertebrates which would in- 

 crease costs of sorting unless the entire catch was 

 processed as a mixed species product. 



In our study the greatest relative abundance 

 (catch/tow) of adults was during winter at which 

 time commercial harvesting could take advan- 

 tage of any concentrations of fish resulting from 

 a shift to a more offshore distribution of the popu- 

 lation. Reduction of fishing effort during late 

 winter and early spring would allow the un- 

 fished stock to spawn and juveniles to be re- 

 cruited to the fishery at a larger size, possibly 

 regulated by net mesh size. Even in this case, a 

 drastic reduction in population size could ad- 

 versely affect the recreational headboat fishery. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



We thank the Captain and crew of the RV Dol- 

 phin for cooperation and patient efforts through- 

 out the field work; Victor Burrell, Jr., Director of 

 the South Carolina Marine Resources Research 

 Institute for support and encouragement; Julian 

 Mikell for preliminary summary, especially 



gonad/maturity data; Karen Swanson and Herb 

 Gordy for graphic arts; Dean Ahrenholz, Gene 

 Huntsman, and John Merriner for reviewing the 

 manuscript; and Beverly Ashby and Beverly 

 Harvey for typing. 



Parts of this research were sponsored by the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service (MARMAP 

 Program Office) under contract No. 6-35147. 



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