A major change that occurred in fishing 

 practices of the haddock fleet should be noted 

 here. In June 1953, pursuant to regulation 

 (Graham and Premetz, 1955), the commercial 

 haddock fleet was required to increase the 

 size of mesh used in their trawl nets from 

 2 7/8 inches to at least 4 1/2 inches. This 

 resulted in a marked reduction of the number 

 of small haddock caught and discarded at sea 

 by the commercial fleet in the years following 

 introduction of the regulation. 



METHOD OF SAMPLING 



Samples were taken only from the landings 

 of vessels which had fished entirely on Georges 

 Bank during the trip. Vessels which fished 

 both on Georges Bank (5Z) and in adjacent 

 areas during a trip were not sampled. This 

 was to ensure that the location from which 

 the fish were taken was known exactly. 



After the fish are landed and sold to dealers 

 at auction, they are packed by market cate- 

 gory^ into wooden crates (holding from 100 to 

 500 pounds) and transported to processing 

 plants. The fish could only be sampled in the 

 short time between their arrival at the plant 

 and the start of processing. 



Length frequency samples of 50 scrod and 

 100 large haddock were obtained by measuring 

 the fork length of the required numbers of 

 fish from the top layers of these packed crates. 

 Unlike length-frequency samples, scale sam- 

 ples were selected to include as large a range 

 of fish lengths as were accessible. Any bias 

 due to selection was later adjusted by properly 

 weighting each size group by the nonselective 

 length-frequency samples. 



2 



Scrod liaddock weigh from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 pounds 

 gutted; large haddock weigh over 2 1/2 pounds. 



BASIC TABLES 



The remainder of this report consists of 

 125 tables representing the seasonal sample 

 data by 1-cm. groups for lengths and ages 

 of haddock in the commercial haddock landings 

 from Georges Bank during 1931-55. 



The methods used to convert these sample 

 data into the estimated numbers and pounds 

 landed for Georges Bank for each season and 

 market category are described by Schuck (1951) 

 and Clark and Dreyer (1961). 



LITERATURE CITED 



CLARK, JOHN R., and FRANK A. DREYER. 

 1961. Biostatistics of the New England 

 haddock fishery, 1956. U.S. Fish and 

 Wildlife Service, Special Scientific Re- 

 port—Fisheries No. 375, 89 p. 



GRAHAM, HERBERT W., and ERNEST D. 

 PREMETZ. 

 1955. First year of the mesh regulation 

 in the Georges Bank haddock fishery. 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Special 

 Scientific Report — Fisheries No. 42, 

 29 p. 



ROUNSEFELL, GEORGE A. 



1948. Development of fishery statistics in 

 the North Atlantic. U.S. Fish and Wild- 

 life Service, Special Scientific Report 

 No. 47, 18 p. 



1957. A method of estimating abundance of 

 groundfish on Georges Bank. U.S. Fish 

 and Wildlife Service, Fishery Bulletin 

 113, vol. 57, p. 265-278. 



SCHUCK, HOWARD A. 



1951. Studies of Georges Bank haddock. 

 Part 1: Landings by pounds, numbers, 

 and sizes of fish. U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service, Fishery Bulletin 66, vol. 52, 

 p. 151-176. 



