shops in southeastern Florida. Catches everywhere are 

 low and probably fewer than 100 spearfish per year are 

 caught by anglers in the western Atlantic. 



Commercial longlining vessels take spearfish along 

 with tunas, swordfish, other istiophorids, sharks, and 

 miscellaneous other fishes. Again spearfish catches 

 are incidental and the gear used is well described in 

 various trade and government journals. Japanese data 

 grouped spearfish and sailfish under "other marlin" 

 until 1965, and since that time have listed them as 

 "spearfish and sailfish." These data may include 

 small marlin. It is assumed by Japanese biologists, as 

 noted by Wise and Davis (1973:20), that nearshore 

 records apply to sailfish, offshore records to spearfish. 

 There is no valid reason to exclude spearfish from 

 nearshore catches and no doubt some sailfish are in- 

 cluded in the offshore data. Wise and Davis (1973:3) 

 record 610,000 fish in this category caught between 

 1958 and 1969 with peak years of 118,000 in 1964 and 

 1965, the years of maximum Japanese effort, about 85 

 and 97.5 million hooks. Even assuming that only a 

 small percentage are spearfish it is obvious that many 

 more spearfish are caught commercially than by sport 

 fishermen. 



5.12 Boats 



Fishing vessels, whether for sport fishing or longlin- 

 ing are those generally employed for the purpose and 

 are well described in the voluminous literature on the 

 subject. 



5.2 Fishing Areas 



5.21 General geographic distribution 



See 5.22. 



5.22 Geographic ranges 



Inasmuch as all fish studied were obtained by the 

 sport fishery or the longline fishery, it follows that the 

 known distribution of the species, described in detail 

 above, is that of the fishery. 



The sport fishery is restricted by logistical reasons 

 to coastal areas near ports where marina facilities ex- 

 ist for private yachts and where charter boats are 

 available. Oceanic big game fishing is an expensive 

 pastime and except for some coastal cities in the 

 United States at which relatively inexpensive charters 

 are available, most participants are from upper and 

 middle income groups. Therefore, the main sport 

 fishing centers for all istiophorid fishes are coastal 

 tourist cities and islands with first-class tourist ac- 

 commodations. Few boats fish more than 50 miles 

 from port except along the southeastern coast of 

 Brazil where operations may extend beyond 200 miles. 

 Recently sport fishing boats, fishing out of St. 

 Petersburg, Fla., and using a mother ship, have fished 

 over the 100-fathom curve about 100 miles from shore 

 (de Sylva, pers. comm.). 



In contrast the longline fishery is largely oceanic. 

 The extent of this fishery is easily seen by the ex- 

 amination of the numerous charts in Ueyanagi et al. 

 (1970). Specifically Figure 7 in that work shows the 

 geographic distribution of catches of the longbill 

 spearfish, but the charts of the other more common 

 istiophorids such as the blue and white marlins give a 

 better view of the geographic distribution of the 

 fishing effort. 



6 PROTECTION AND MANAGEMENT 

 No data. 



7 POND FISH CULTURE 

 Not applicable. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



Albert Pflueger, Jr. has continued to make 

 specimens of spearfish and other species that enter his 

 taxidermy plant available for study by the writer and 

 his colleagues. I am indebted to Jon C. Staiger, James 

 P. Pardew, and Charles Getter for assitance in gather- 

 ing and processing data and to William J. Richards, 

 Catherine H. Robins, Martin A. Roessler, and Francis 

 Williams for advice and comments on the manuscript. 

 William J. Richards generously provided data on 

 specimen 47, collected by the RV Oregon II. Donald P. 

 de Sylva and I worked together on billfish projects for 

 many years; I appreciate his advice and assistance. 



Support for this research was provided by the 

 Maytag professorship in ichthyology. My participa- 

 tion in the Kona Conference was through special 

 funds provided by the Dean of the School of Marine 

 and Atmospheric Science, F. G. Walton Smith. 



LITERATURE CITED 



AGASSIZ, L. 



1843. Recherches sur les poissons fossiles. Poissons cy- 

 cloides. Neuchatel 5:1-160. 

 ANONYMOUS. 



1963. Spearfish: New species identified. Commer. Fish. 

 Rev. 25(8) :53. 



1964a. Tuna distribution studies in North Atlantic con- 

 tinued. Commer. Fish. Rev. 26(2):37-40. 



1964b. Tuna and swordfish distribution studies in western 

 North Atlantic. Commer. Fish. Rev. 26(9):28-31. 



1972. Some spear. Fla. Sportsman 3(4):40. 



36 



