gill net on the evening of Sept. 21-22 were fully mature. At 

 both sites, eggs were first observed with the ROV within a day or 

 two after spawning occurred. 



The Libby Island site (Fig. 5) was in a more exposed location 

 and in deeper water. Depths were fairly uniform, ranging from 

 about 40 to 50 m (too deep for convenient SCUBA diving) . Eggs 

 were observed on lobster traps located 1.5 km apart in a NE-SW 

 direction, but it is doubtful that the egg bed was continuous 

 over these distances. Bad weather interrupted survey work for 

 three days and most of the eggs had apparently hatched when 

 operations resumed on Sept. 14. Egg bed observations and 

 samples were therefore only obtained at this site during a two- 

 day period (Sept. 9-10) . Eggs were observed on the bottom in 

 large clumps forming a more or less cohesive egg carpet at two 

 locations. Where egg cover was heavy, the substrate was composed 

 primarily of shell fragments. During one dive, an abrupt 

 transition was observed between a rocky area with no eggs into a 

 flat bottom with eggs. Egg cover increased as the distance from 

 the rocks increased. 



At the LMB egg bed site, surveying was continuous for a 10- 

 day period from the morning after the fish spawned (Sept. 23) 

 until the eggs started hatching (Oct. 2-3) . The large number of 

 bottom grab samples, SCUBA samples, Mini-Rover dives, and trap 

 hauls made in this area provided fairly complete information 

 concerning the distribution of eggs relative to depth and bottom 

 features (Fig. 6) . Eggs were deposited over an area 

 approximately 0.8 km 2 in size. Negative grab samples delimited 

 the inshore, offshore and western edges of the bed; the eastern 

 edge of the bed was not as well defined. At 19 sampling 

 locations distributed over most of the egg bed, a dense 

 continuous carpet of eggs 1-3 cm thick was observed. At other 

 locations, eggs, if present, were either moderate or few in 

 number. Eggs were distributed at this site in two areas: 1) in a 

 shallower (20-25 m) "pocket" between the shoreline and three 

 rocky near-shore ledges; and 2) in deeper (25-35 m) water west 

 and outside of these ledges and in between two near-shore 

 islands. This is the area where the adult fish were congregating 

 at right during the week prior to spawning. 



Eggs were observed at this site on a variety of substrates 

 including a thin veneer of eggs on small rocks near the inshore 

 edges of the bed. Egg carpet was deposited on shell fragments 

 and gravel. As at Libby Island, fairly abrupt transitions were 

 observed between heavy egg cover in flat bottom areas to no eggs 

 in adjacent rocky areas. The fish clearly avoided rocky, irreg- 

 ular, bottom areas when they spawned. Egg cover also diminished 

 fairly abruptly in shallow water inside the entrance to Little 

 Machias Bay (Fig. 6) on a more uniform, sandy substrate. The 

 offshore edge of the egg bed was defined by increasing depth, but 

 not an obvious change in bottom substrate. Egg density 

 diminished more gradually through this perimeter of the egg bed 

 until a point was reached where eggs did not form clumps and were 



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