Figure 25. Cicographic references for the Cape Hallaas to Ca|K; Cod areas. 



mean length of the females which he 

 had measured mcreased by 20 cm 

 Similar fishmg occurs, with fewer 

 boats participatmg, along the west- 

 em edge of the Little Bahama Bank 

 (West End to Malanilla Shoal). 



Giant bluefm have also been 

 taken off the eastern Bahamas, from 

 Cat Island to Walker Cay (Anony- 

 mous 1962), in the same season. A 

 few have been taken off southeastern 

 Florida on rare occasions during the 

 winter and spnng 



Small and medium sized bluefin 

 are very rare or nonexistent in the 

 vicinity of the Bahamas, but runs of 

 very small (less tiian 2 kg) fish some- 

 times occur off southeastern I'lorida 

 in July-September, and individuals 

 are sometimes taken through the fall 



and into early winter (Rixas 1954, 

 Mather and Schuck 1960, Mather 

 1963) 



c. Gulf of Mexico and 

 Caribbean Sea 



Bluefin tuna are caught b) 

 longline, and occasionally bv sport 

 fishing, in the Caribbean Sea and the 

 Gulf of Mexico (Figure 31) Catch 

 records, aside from those of the Japa- 

 nese longline fisheiy, and size data 

 are sparse, but sulTicient to give a 

 good idea of their distributional pat- 

 tern Most of tlie catches ha\e been 

 m the first two quarters of the year 

 United States exploratory catches 

 (Wathne 1959, Anonymous 1962) 

 and commercial catches (H R Hullis. 

 .Ir , personal communication) ha\e 



been mamly in the Gulf of Mexico 

 and the northwestern Caribbean The 

 Japanese effort, which has been much 

 more extensive, has shown that the 

 species occurs occasionally through- 

 out most of the Canbbean (Fisheries 

 Agency of Japan 1967a) 



A small scale Cuban longline 

 fishery for giant bluefm has operated 

 in the spring, over the Bartlett Deep 

 between Cuba and Jamaica. This fish- 

 ery was initiated in 1 969 and the larg- 

 est catch of about 360 tons (includ- 

 ing incidental catch of other species) 

 was taken in 1 970 The landmgs were 

 smaller, but good, in the next three 

 years, but the 1974 catch was ex- 

 tremely poor (Ubeda 1974). Cuban 

 handliners occasionally catch giant 

 bluefin off Havana in the spring 

 (Rivas 1954), 



All of the longline catches in the 

 Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean 

 Sea for which we have size data were 

 giants, over 185 cm long. Similar 

 size fish have been encountered oc- 

 casionally by sport fishermen be- 

 tween Cozumel Island and the 

 Yucatan Peninsula and off the Mis- 

 sissippi delta in late spring on the 

 surface, sometimes in large schools 

 (Nakamura and Rivas 1972). 



We had \'irtually no records of 

 occurrences of medium sized or small 

 bluefin tuna in these waters until 

 Shingu et al. (1975) reported catches 

 of bluefin tuna weighing less than 10 

 kg b\' Japanese longline vessels in 

 the Gulf of Mexico in June and July 

 1973. We have had several reliable 

 reports and records, however, show- 

 ing that very .small (age 0, 2 kg or 

 less) individuals have occurred in the 

 Gulf of Mexico from July mto No- 

 vember 



3. Atlantic Oceanic Waters 



Hx tensive data on the seasonal 

 distribution of bluefin tuna in the oce- 

 anic waters of ihc Atlantic have be- 

 come available from the records of 

 the Japanese longline fishery 

 (Shiohama et al. 1965, Fisheries 

 Agencv of Japan 1965, 1966, 1967a, 

 1967b. 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 

 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, Wise and 

 Lc Guen 1969; Wi.se and Davis 1973) 

 as well as from exploratory fishing 

 (Wathne 1959, Anonymous 1962, 

 Wilson and Bartlett 1967). The gen- 



29 



