SOURCES AND DISTRIBUTION OF BLUEFISH, 



POMATOMUS SALTATRIX, LARVAE AND JUVENILES OFF 



THE EAST COAST OF THE UNITED STATES 



Arthur W. Kendall. Jr.' and Lionel A. Walford^ 



ABSTRACT 



Larval bluefish are found offshore somewhere between Cape Cod, Mass. , and Palm Beach, Fla. , dunng 

 every season of the year. However, there appear to be two main spawning concentrations — one during 

 spring near the western edge of the Gulf Stream in the South Atlantic Bight and the other during 

 summer over the contmental shelf of the Middle Atlantic Bight. Larvae complete development near the 

 surface; juveniles are strongly associated with the surface. Juveniles from the spring spawning remain 

 at sea and are carried northward past Cape Hatteras, N.C., above the edge of the continental shelf As 

 surface shelf water warms, they move shoreward to spend the summer in estuaries of the Middle 

 Atlantic Bight Bluefish spawned in summer remain at sea asjuveniles or enter estuaries briefly in late 

 summer. In fall, as the water cools, the juveniles move southward out of the Middle Atlantic Bight. It is 

 possible that these two spawnings represent different populations. A smaller fall and winter spawning 

 which occurs offshore south of Cape Hatteras may represent a small population resident to the South 

 Atlantic Bight. 



Bluefish, Pomatomus saltatrix (Linnaeus), occur 

 in most temperate coastal regions of all world 

 oceans (Briggs 1960). Fowler (1944) erroneously 

 reporteii them from the eastern Pacific where they 

 do not occur. The earliest descriptions of eggs and 

 larvae of bluefish by Agassiz and Whitman ( 1885) 

 which have been quoted by other authors, e.g., 

 Padoa (1956) and Salekhova (1959), are errone- 

 ous. Colton and Honey (1963), Deuel et al. ( 1966). 

 and Norcross et al . ( 1 974 ) correctly described them 

 and showed that bluefish spawn pelagic eggs in 

 the open sea and larval development takes place 

 near the surface. Juveniles generally move from 

 the open sea to coastal areas and estuaries. This 

 pattern has been observed off North .'\merica. in 

 the Black Sea. and off South Africa (Irvme 1947; 

 Bigelow and Schroeder 1953; Oben 1957; Smith 

 1961). 



Along the Middle Atlantic Bight, i.e., from Cape 

 Cod, Mass., to Cape Hatteras, N.C., bluefish eggs, 

 larvae, and juveniles have been collected during 

 several ichthyoplankton studies (Sette 1943; Lund 

 and Maltezos 1970; Norcross et al. 1974). Al- 

 though restricted in sampling area or time, these 



'Northeast Fisheries Center Sandy Hook Laboratory, Na- 

 tional Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. Highlands, NJ 07732; 

 present address; Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Center, 

 NMFS, NOAA, 2725 Montlake Boulevard East, Seattle. WA 

 98112. 



^New Jersev Marine Sciences Consortium, Fort Hancock, N.J 

 07732. 



studies have indicated that spawning and larval 

 development take place offshore from Chesapeake 

 Bay to southern New England in late spring and 

 summer. Juveniles occur in estuaries along the 

 middle Atlantic coast in summer (Clark^). 



The sources of data for this paper are plankton 

 collections taken by personnel of the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), NOAA, Sandy 

 Hook Laboratory, as part of a study to investigate 

 the importance of estuaries as nursery areas of 

 Atlantic coast fishes. The first part of this study 

 consisted of a survey of ichthyoplankton over the 

 continental shelf an area thought to be the spawn- 

 ing grounds for many species of fishes. From in- 

 formation gained during this study, we hoped to 

 trace the movement of young stages from spawn- 

 ing grounds and thus evaluate the importance of 

 estuaries as nurseries. From the results of this 

 study, several additional short cruises were con- 

 ducted to study further the distribution of larval 

 and juvenile bluefish in certain offshore areas at 

 specific times of the year. 



In this paper, information from these studies 

 and those of previous workers is presented to help 

 elucidate the times and places of bluefish spawn- 



M.tnuscript accepted September 197H 

 FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL 77. NO 1. 1979 



=Clark, J, R, 1973. Bluefish. In A. L. Pacheco (editor). 

 Proceedings of a workshop on egg, larval, and juvenile stages of 

 fish in Atlantic coast estuaries, p. 250-251. Middle Atl, Coastal 

 Fish. Cent,. Tech. Publ. 1. 



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