330 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



Whiting landings for New York and New Jersey 

 are shown in figure 26 together with the average 

 price per pound for the years 1937 to 1950. A 

 downward trend in landings is evident to 1947 

 with a precipitous drop in 1948. Wliiting catches 

 remained at a low level in 1951 and 1952. The 

 decline in whiting catches has not been accom- 

 panied by any decline in fishing effort or in de- 

 mand — the price has, in fact, increased. A sub- 

 stantial part of the whiting catch is made in 

 stationary pound nets. These nets catch a 

 variety of species, so that their successful opera- 

 tion does not depend entirely on a particular 

 species. The whiting catch of pound nets has 

 suffered a decline which corresponds in magnitude 

 to the total catch of whiting by all gear. The 

 pound-net fishery in New Jersey, for example, 

 averaged about 4.8 million pounds of whiting 

 annually from 1942 to 1945. In 1948 and 1949, 

 the catches were 168,100 and 354,600 pounds, 

 respectively. Whiting vessels from Gloucester 

 which formerly found it profitable to fish in the 

 New York-New Jersey area during the summer 

 months are reported to do so no longer because of 

 the scarcity of whiting. 



While a general increase in landings of whiting 

 is found for the period 1937-50 for New England 

 as a whole, due to increased landings in Massa- 

 chusetts and Maine, the catch declined in Con- 

 necticut and Rhode Island. Landings for Con- 

 necticut and Rhode Island have followed almost 

 identical fluctuations (fig. 27). Tiiey rose sud- 

 denly between 1942 and 1943, perhaps because of 

 the price increase in 1943, but then declined more 

 or less consistently to their earlier level. Land- 

 ings in Maine and Massachusetts are shown in 

 figure 28, together with Maine prices. Although 

 prices increased in 1942 and 1943, there was no 

 corresponding increase in landings. Maine prices 

 have since declined from the high of 2.5 cents per 

 pound in 1943 to about 1 cent in 1952, but the 

 catch in Maine increased during the same period 

 from 2 million pounds to 22 million pounds. 



An interesting fact is that while the total Massa- 

 chusetts landings of whiting have increased since 

 1937 tlie pound-net catch has decreased (fig. 29). 

 Thus the catch per pound net for the period 

 1937-42 averaged 78,775 pounds, but since 1943 

 only 22,783 pounds. 



Bigelow and Welsh (1925) stated that the 

 silver hake (whiting) was strictly a summer fish 



1936 1940 1944 1948 



YEAR 



Figure 27. — Connectieut-Rhode Island 

 1937 to 1950. 



1952 



whiting catch, 



in the Gulf of Maine, sometimes appearing in the 

 Massachusetts Bay-Cape Ann region as early 

 as the last week in March and regularly striking 

 there by May, and they noted this applies equally 

 to Georges Bank where the first whiting were 

 taken by otter trawlers from April 27 to 29 in 

 1913. They further stated that the fish vanished 

 from coastwise waters and from the offshore fish- 

 ing banks sometime in late autumn and that, 

 probably, the fish did not winter in the deep basin 

 of the Gulf of Maine, but withdrew from it alto- 

 gether at the approach of cold weather. 



With reference to the relative abundance of 

 whiting to other fishes on Georges Bank, Bigelow 

 and Welsh, reporting on the otter-trawl investiga- 

 tions of 1913, stated that during the period April 

 to September the average catch per trip was about 

 14,000 haddock to 1,800 whiting. Gloucester 

 fishermen recall the former seasonal occurrence 

 of whiting on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of 

 Maine. 



If tlie wliiting was once strictly a summer fish 

 in the Gulf of Maine, a conclusion generally 

 accepted at one time (Bigelow and Welsh, 1925; 

 Schroeder 1931), this is not the situation today. 

 Bigelow and Schroeder (1953) point out that some 

 whiting are now caught in the Gulf of Maine in 

 winter and that whiting perhaps always have 

 wintered in the deeper parts of the Gulf. It is 



