FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



289 



Maine, 12,000 pounds; off western Maine, 630,000 

 pounds; small grounds in west central part of 

 Gulf, 77,000 pounds; off eastern Massachusetts, 

 582,000 pounds; South Channel grounds, east 

 and west, 629,000 pounds; other parts of Georges 

 Bank, 94,000 pounds; Nantucket Shoals region, 

 16,000 pounds. 85 



More precise evidence as to their local numbers 

 on suitable bottoms in the appropriate depths is 

 that as much as 500 pounds have been taken in a 

 15- to 20-minute haul with a small beam trawl in 

 Massachusetts Bay, and that we caught 48 of them 

 in Ipswich Bay in 22 fathoms, in a short haul with 

 an 8-foot beam trawl on July 16, 1912. We also 

 saw 519 of them, 10 to 22 inches long, trawled on 

 the southwestern part of Georges Banks by the 

 Eugene H, in 41 hauls at 26 to 65 fathoms in late 

 June 1951, and learned that this dragger caught 

 9,000 pounds on the northeastern edge of Georges 

 Bank, in 85 to 95 fathoms, October 12-18, 1951. 



Neither the witch flounder nor the American 

 dab is as plentiful as the yellowtail on good flounder 

 bottoms, or the flatfishes of the winter flounder 

 group (blackbacks plus lemon soles). And At- 

 lantis took only 156 witch to 279 dabs on soft 

 bottom at 90 to 103 fathoms during experimental 

 trawling in the deeper parts of the Gulf in August 

 1936. 



Gray soles are at least moderately plentiful off 

 southern New England. The Albatross III, for 

 example, took 90 there in one trawl haul at 101 

 to 150 fathoms in mid-May 1950, a few as shoal 

 as 31 to 40 fathoms. And a few thousand pounds 

 are landed yearly in New York and in New Jersey 

 ports. 96 But records of the witch from farther 

 south than New Jersey are of an occasional fish 

 only. 



Reported landings suggest that gray soles are 

 about as plentiful all along the Nova Scotian 

 banks as they are in the Gulf of Maine region. 

 In 1947, for example, New England vessels landed 

 about 555,000 pounds of them from the various 

 grounds from the eastern part of Browns Bank to 

 Banquereau, about half of which came from the 

 Horseshoe ground between Halifax and Sable 

 [sland. 97 And they seem to be moderately plenti- 



" An additional 182,000 pounds were landed in Cape Cod fishing porta, 

 source not stated. 



" About 19,000 pounds in New York in 1947, about 28,000 pounds in New 

 Jersey. 



" Only a few thousand pounds are reported yearly from Nova Scotia, in the 

 Canadian fishery statistics. 



210941—53 20 



ful in the southern part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 for Cox M wrote of many (large and small) as 

 taken, off the Cape Breton shore, and in Cabot 

 Strait off Cape North. But no information is 

 available as to their numbers elsewhere in the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence, or on the Grand Banks. 



It seems that the witch does not breed success- 

 fully in the Bay of Fundy; at least its eggs have 

 never been found there, nor have its larvae. But 

 probably it does so in other parts of the Gulf in 

 general, including the offshore Banks, though our 

 only positive egg records for it have been off Pe- 

 nobscot Bay, and at the mouth of Massachusetts 

 Bay. And there is no reason to doubt that the 

 more northerly populations are equally self sup- 

 porting, for the pelagic larvae have been taken 

 at many localities on the more easterly of the 

 Nova Scotian Banks; in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; 

 over the Grand Banks; and along the south and 

 east coasts of Newfoundland, by the Canadian 

 Fisheries Expedition of 1915, and during the cruises 

 of the Newfoundland Fishery Research Commis- 

 sion more recently." But there is no evidence 

 that the witch spawns to any extent to the west 

 of Cape Cod. 



Captures of eggs, certainly of this species, in our 

 tow nets in July and August, with larvae up to 

 20 to 23 mm. long as early as the first week of 

 July, but others as small as 9 to 10 mm. as late as 

 mid-October, show that the witch is a late spring 

 and summer spawner in the Gulf of Maine as it is 

 in European waters also, with the peak of produc- 

 tion probably falling in July and August. Thus 

 its spawning season overlaps that of the haddock, 

 (p. 207). 



Its eggs are shed in the Gulf of Maine in tem- 

 peratures ranging from 39° to 41° F. at the begin- 

 ning of the season, to 43° to 48° in midsummer. 

 But (being buoyant) the temperature may be con- 

 siderably higher at the level where their develop- 

 ment takes place than deeper down where the 

 spawning fish lie. In fact, it is doubtful if any 

 eggs develop in our Gulf in water as cold as 42° to 

 43°. Neither is there any reason to suppose that 

 witch eggs develop in water any colder than this 

 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or off Newfoundland, 

 for the surface stratum to which they rise after 



« Contrib. Canad. Biol. (1918-1920) 1921, p. 113. 



'• See Frost, Research Bull. 4. Newfoundland Dept. Nat. Resources, 1938 

 Chart 6, for Newfoundland localities. 



