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FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



land in 1926, when the stock was dominated by 

 fish hatched in 1923, i. e., were in their third year. 

 In years of this sort, anglers fishing in harbors, or 

 going out in charter boats for the day, do well, 

 catching the smaller sizes chiefly. But in 1928, 

 when the same year class dominated as had in 

 1926 (i. e., fish now in their fifth year), only about 

 two-thirds of the catch was made that close in, 

 with about one-third of the catch taken more than 

 45 miles out at sea. Nineteen twenty-nine may 

 serve as another example, with more than one- 

 half (57 percent) of the large fish caught more than 

 45 miles out, but less than 1 percent of the small 

 ones, and a few large ones, taken as far out as 80 

 miles. But even the fully grown fish do sometimes 

 come close inshore; we have ourselves caught 

 mackerel within a few yards of the beach in the 

 southern side of Massachusetts Bay, as large as 

 any that we have seen taken anywhere. 



Fishermen have long realized that mackerel are 

 most likely to be found where there is a good 

 supply of "red feed" (copepods) or other small 

 animal life in the water. A relationship has, in 

 fact, been found to hold in the English Channel 

 between the catches of mackerel and the numbers 

 of copepods present. 69 And while no attempt has 

 been made yet to relate the local abundance of 

 mackerel in our Gulf, or the depths at which they 

 swim with the supply of food on a statistical 

 basis, the mere fact that they do fatten in our 

 waters is evidence enough that they manage in 

 some way to congregate where food is plentiful. 

 But it appears that their vernal journey, from 

 their wintering grounds to the Gulf and to Nova 

 Scotian waters, is directed by some impulse to 

 migration more definite than the mere search for 

 food. Thus while a large proportion of the mack- 

 erel did travel along the zone of abundant plank- 

 ton in the only year (1930) when their advance 

 along the coast has been compared with the 

 quantitative distribution of the animals on which 

 they prey, 60 they deserted the waters south of New 

 England that year while the food still was abund- 

 ant there, for regions (Gulf of Maine and eastward) 

 where there is no reason to suppose that feeding 

 conditions were any better at the time. 61 



■ Bullen, Jour. Marine Biol. Assoc. United Kingdom, vol. 8, 1908, pp. 269, 

 302. 



"> Bigelow and Sears, Mem. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 54, No. 4, 1939, pp. 

 259-261. 



« See Sette (Fish. Bull. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, vol. 51, Bull. 49, 

 1950, p. 302) for a further discussion of the influence of feeding conditions on 

 the movements of the American mackerel. 



As autumn draws on, the fish that summer along 

 the Maine coast (chiefly belonging to the southern 

 contingent) seem to work back southwestward 

 toward Cape Cod, for catches were made suc- 

 cessively off Portland, near Boon Island, and off 

 Cape Ann, in the days when mackerel were 

 caught on hook and line. It is probable, too, 

 that such of the fish from the northern contingent 

 as ha ye entered the Gulf in the eastern side join in 

 this general autumnal movement around the 

 coast to the westward and southward, rather 

 than that they leave by the route along which 

 they enter, for schools have often been reported, 

 and actually followed, swimming southward at 

 the surface across Massachusetts Bay. And 

 while reports of this sort are likely to be based on 

 misconception, 62 they are corroborated in this 

 instance by the fact that the latest catches are 

 always made either in or off Massachusetts Bay, 

 along the outer shore of Cape Cod, or on the neigh- 

 boring parts of Nantucket Shoals, never either on 

 Georges Bank, which would be on the direct route 

 of any fish swimming westward from Nova Scotia, 

 or in the inner parts of the Gulf of Maine. 



Sette's studies indicate that the bulk, at least, of 

 the mackerel of the southern contingent have 

 moved out of the Gulf around Cape Cod and past 

 Nantucket Shoals by late September or October 

 in most years. But many of the fish of the 

 northern contingent coming from Nova Scotia, 

 and perhaps even from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 usually provide good fishing off Cape Ann and 

 southward through October and late into Novem- 

 ber, 63 with good commercial catches until mid- 

 December in some years. In 1913, for example, 

 1,200 mackerel were caught off Gloucester on 

 December 10; 3,000 off Chatham, Cape Cod, a day 

 or two earlier; and nearly 1,000 barrels (200,000 

 pounds) were seined off the Massachusetts coast 

 during the early part of that month in 1922. In 

 mild winters schools of mackerel are sometimes 

 reported and even caught off the outer coast of 

 Nova Scotia as late as Christmas time; i. e., 

 somewhat later than off Cape Cod. But the 



" The successive approach of one school after another to the coast often sug- 

 gests a long-shore movement of the fish. Thus Kendall (Bull. U. S. Bur. 

 Fish., vol. 28, Pt. 1, 1910, p. 287) tells of an instance when seiners reported 

 "following" the schools continuously eastward along outer Nova Scotia, 

 although the fish taken off Liverpool proved to be of quite different sizes from 

 the catch made later about Cape Breton. 



■ In 1922, for example (Gloucester Times of April 26, 1923), mackerel netters 

 fishing near Cape Ann did well right through November, with a catch of 

 about 1,200,000 pounds (6,000 barrels) for the month. 



