FISHERY BULLETIN VOL 77. NO I 



separated nearshore stations ( Figure 7 ). The regu- 

 lar presence of bluefish juveniles in offshore wa- 

 ters of the Middle Atlantic Bight in June was 

 observed in three subsequent years. They occurred 

 during 1969 only near shore; during 1970 only 

 near the edge of the continental shelf; and during 

 1971 they were scattered over the shelf and slope 

 (Figure 8b, c, d). The origin of these juveniles was 

 puzzling, because there was no evidence of 

 bluefish larvae in the Middle Atlantic Bight until 

 midsummer. We had taken larvae and juveniles in 

 April and May from Cape Hatteras south to 

 Florida mainly offshore near the slope front. Ap- 

 parently these fish become distributed along the 

 slope front off the Middle Atlantic Bight in May 

 and June and then cross the continental shelf in 

 June as surface waters become suitably warm. 

 Surface temperatures on the shelf are generally 

 15° to 20°C at this time, and most of the juveniles 

 were taken in water >18°C. 



The juveniles we caught in August (Figure 7) 

 were presumably products of recent spawning in 

 nearby waters, for only slightly smaller larvae 

 appeared in the plankton tows in the same area. 

 One specimen 128 mm SL taken just outside 

 Chesapeake Bay had probably been spawned in 

 the spring off the South Atlantic Bight. 



We collected a few juveniles of widely differing 

 sizes during two surveys in fall 1966. In a cruise 

 conducted in 1970, we confirmed the regular pres- 

 ence of juvenile bluefish in the Middle Atlantic 

 Bight in fall. We then collected juveniles between 

 Delaware and Chesapeake F^ays within 13 km of 

 the shore ( Figure 8e); and several specimens about 

 200 mm SL in the same area. The juveniles from 

 these cruises can be attributed to the summer 

 spawning of bluefish in continental shelf waters of 

 the Middle Atlantic Bight; and the fish about 200 

 mm SL to the southern spring spawning. The lat- 

 ter fish had presumably spent the summer in mid- 

 dle Atlantic estuaries ( Wilk") and had returned to 

 the ocean. A 124-mm SL specimen taken in 

 November may have originated from either 

 spawning. 



No bluefish juveniles were taken in fall in the 

 .South Atlantic Bight and neither larvae nor 



*Wilk,S.J. 1977. Biological and fisheries data on bluefi.sh, 

 Pomatomus saltatrix (Linnaeus). Sandy Hook Lab. Tech. Ser. 

 Rep. 11, 56 p. 



FIOIRE 7. — Months of capture lindicated by numerals) of 

 juvenile bluefish at stations sampled by surface meter net and 

 nndwater trawl during RV Dolphin surveys, 1965-68. 



222 



