from east of Maryland and south of 

 Cape Cod to south of the Grand 

 Banks. In May and early June the 

 fish tend to concentrate in the west- 

 em part of this area, at least. The 

 eastern part has not been sampled in 

 these months. The highest catch rates 

 occurred in the area bounded by 38°N 

 and 40°N latitude and 68°W and 

 70°W longitude, where some fish 

 which appeared to be in advanced 

 stages of maturity were taken (Sec- 

 tion VD3) In June, this distribution 

 spreads westward to the edge of the 

 continental sheh", and thence to the 

 coast, completing the migratory cycle 

 of this size group Since the explor- 

 atory fishing may not have covered 

 all of the eastward part of the winter 

 and spnng distributions, the migra- 

 tory pattern may extend farther to the 

 east in those seasons. 



d. Small Fish 



Over 14,600 small and medium 

 bluefm have been tagged in coastal 

 waters between Cape Hatteras, North 

 Carolina, and Cape Cod, Mas- 

 sachusetts, m the period July 1954 

 through October 1976, and 2,992 re- 

 turns have resulted (Table 34) 

 (Burnett et al. 1977, Mason and 

 Baglin 1977). Most of these fish were 

 in the small group, 50-120 cm long, 

 but a few were mediums, 120-160 

 cm long. The majority of the fish 

 were released from purse seine 

 catches, a procedure which may in- 

 cur very high tagging mortality 

 (Beckett 1974). The return rates from 

 hook and line releases were consid- 

 erably higher than those from seine 

 releases in nearly all years (unpub- 

 lished data at Woods Hole Oceano- 

 graphic Institution) Lenarz et al. 

 (1973), utilizing the results of the 

 double tagging experiments which 

 have been carried out in this area 

 since 1971, estimated the instanta- 

 neous rate of tag shedding, on an 

 annual basis, to be 31. 



The returns included 2,944 from 

 the release area, seven from oceanic 

 waters in the western North Atlantic, 

 one from the Gulf of Mexico, and 40 

 from the Bay of Biscay. Since times 

 at large ranged up to six years, and 

 even 1 years in one case, several of 

 these fish were in the medium size 

 group when recaptured, and one was 

 defmitely a giant The migration of 



the last mdividual, which has been 

 descnbed previously in this section, 

 was the first to connect the only 

 known nursery area for juveniles m 

 the western Atlantic with the major 

 spawning ground of giants in the Gulf 

 of Mexico. The returns from the Bay 

 of Biscay will be discussed in Sec- 

 tion VIC3. 



The local recaptures included 

 1,408 in the fishing season in which 

 the fish were released The 1,536 lo- 

 cal recaptures in subsequent seasons, 

 after up to six years at laige, indicate 

 that many of these young hluefin visit 

 this nursery and feeding area for two 

 or more consecutive seasons, some- 

 times returning even after they en- 

 tered the medium group (ages 5-8). 



Less has been learned about the 

 migratory pattern of this size group 

 than might have been expected from 

 the large number of returns, because 

 so many of them were from the re- 

 lease area. Therefore deductions from 

 the movements of the fish through 

 the coastal fishery, and from the lim- 

 ited information available on longlme 

 catches in oceanic waters will be used 

 to supplement the tagging results in 

 describing its migrations 



The 2,944 local returns show that 

 the young blucfin have generally 

 tended to migrate from southwest 

 (Virginia, Maryland and New Jer- 

 sey) to northeast (southern New En- 

 gland) within this nursery and feed- 

 ing area dunng the fishing season 

 (Mather et al 1974b) This is also 

 indicated by the movement of the 

 fishery (Mather 1974b, Sakagawa 

 1975). 



Migrations to waters north of 

 Cape Cod (into Cape Cod and Mas- 

 sachusetts Bays) have been recorded 

 for only a few of the larger (when 

 recaptured) individuals. As noted m 

 Section IVC2, however, small and 

 medium-sized bluefin tuna have not 

 been caught in numbers in the Gulf 

 of Maine for many years. 



In the later part of some seasons 

 (September-October), considerable 

 numbers of small bluefin have re- 

 versed the usual migratory pattern, 

 moving from off .southern New En- 

 gland into the approaches of New 

 York Harbor. In some years, such as 

 1966, this "reverse" migration has 

 been followed by exceptionally good 



fishing for "school" tuna, which has 

 extended later into the fall than usual, 

 off western Long Island and north- 

 ern New Jersey (Moss 1967). 



Until recently, little has been 

 known about the migration of small 

 bluefin from their coastal nursery 

 ground, from which they disappear 

 in late September or October, to their 

 wintering area, which was presumed 

 to be in offshore waters. An interest- 

 ing description of their behavior prior 

 to this movement, however, has been 

 received from R Hillhouse (personal 

 communication), an experienced air 

 spotter of tuna in the area. He has 

 observed "hesitating" behavior 

 (Lenier 1959) of small bluefin off 

 southern New England in late Sep- 

 tember and early October Hillhouse 

 reported sighting schools of small 

 bluefin traveling together in a very 

 large circle, which other schools 

 jomed successively until a substan- 

 tial aggregation offish had been built 

 up Then they all left the area to- 

 gether This behavior is idcnfical to 

 that observed bv Sara (1973) off" the 

 Strait of Messina 



The six winter recovenes off the 

 edge of the continental shelf east and 

 southeast of Georges Bank, near lati- 

 tudes 40-4 1°N and longitudes 65- 

 66 °W (Figure 81), have provided the 

 most significant progress in migra- 

 tory studies of small northwestern 

 Atlantic blucfin in recent years. Two 

 of these indicated "direct" migraUons. 

 These fish had been tagged m the 

 coastal feeding grounds off the north- 

 eastern United States in August 1973 

 and July 1975, and recaptured m the 

 above wintering area after five to six 

 months at large, in January 1974 and 

 January 1976, respecUvely. Three of 

 the other recaptures occurred in Janu- 

 ary after about 17 months at large, 

 and one in February after 30 months. 

 The extent of this wintering area is 

 not known. Catches of bluefin taken 

 during extensne explorator>' fishing 

 from the research vessel "Delaware" 

 in the slope water between the GuLf 

 Stream and the continental shelf dur- 

 ing winter and early spring (Wilson 

 and Bartlett 1967) consisted mainly 

 of medium fish (size data obtained 

 by Woods Hole Oceanographic In- 

 stitution personnel on board the 

 "Delaware" and from J L. Squire, 



127 



