as far as 1,482 km (800 miles) from the Hawaiian 

 Islands (Kanayama. 1970). 



Similar to the Japanese longline fisheries, the 

 catches in the Hawaiian longline fishery are made up 

 mostly of large tunas. During the period from 1964 

 to 1967, considering only the tunas and the bill- 

 fishes, the tunas, by weight, made up about 669^ of 

 the catch, the marlins about 32%, and the sword- 

 fish. A'/p/!(a5^/a^/«i, about l%(Fig. 1). Among the 

 tunas, bigeye tuna dominated the catch followed by 

 yellowfin tuna and albacore, TIudvuis alaliinga. 

 Among the billfishes, striped marlin dominated the 

 catch, followed by blue marlin and swordfish. Small 

 numbers of sailfish, Istiophorus platypterus, and 

 shortbill spearfish, Tetrapturus angustirostris, are 

 also taken. In 1970, the tunas and billfishes landed 

 by the longline fishery were valued to the fishermen 

 at $1,311,471. The billfishes contributed $291,837 

 (22%) to this amount. 



Other species taken on the longline, in their order 

 of importance, are dolphin or mahimahi. Cory- 

 phaena hippunis: wahoo, Acanthocybiiim sol- 

 andii; and a few skipjack tuna, Katsiiwonus pelamis. 



LANDINGS OF 

 STRIPED MARLIN AND BLUE MARLIN 



The annual landings of blue marlin ranged be- 

 tween 47 and 366 metric tons during the period from 

 1952 to 1970 (Fig. 2). The landings declined steadily 



SWORDFISH 



CATCH COMPOSITION (BY WEIGHT) OF HAWAIIAN LONGLINE FISHERY 



Figure 1. — Composition of the tuna and billfish landings 

 in the Hawaiian longline fishery. 



(ft 



z 

 o 



O 400 



c 

 t- 



UJ 



200 



STRIPED MARLIN 



tfannml 



1952 1954 I9S6 1956 I960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 



Figure 2. — Annual landings of blue marlin and striped 

 marlin from 1952 to 1970 in Hawaii. 



from a high of 366 metric tons in 1954 to a low point of 

 48 metric tons in 1 968. The landings recovered a little 

 in 1969 and 1970. 



The annual landings of striped marlin fluctuated 

 between 93 and 228 metric tons during this same 

 period (Fig. 2). No clear trends are evident in the 

 landings although it appears that the landings be- 

 tween 1963 and 1970 were slightly higher than the 

 landings prior to 1963. Of interest is the change in 

 dominance from blue marlin to striped marlin in the 

 landings beginning in 1962. This change was caused 

 primarily by the declining blue marlin catches. 



Strasburg (1970) presented data on the monthly 

 landings of blue marlin and striped marlin in the 

 Hawaiian fishery from 1950 to 1963. For the period 

 1950 to 1960, Strasburg noted a complementary na- 

 ture in the landings of the two species in that striped 

 marlin were caught in large numbers when the blue 

 marlin catches were lowest and vice versa. He 

 noted, however, that the landing peaks of the two 

 species tended to coincide in 1 96 1 and 1962 . Monthly 

 landings from 1963 to 1970, however, again showed a 

 displacement in peak landings for striped marlin and 

 blue marlin (Fig. 3). Blue marlin catches were high- 

 est in summer and lowest in winter, whereas striped 

 marlin were more abundant in the winter than in the 

 summer. The striped marlin landings were also 

 characterized by having more than one peak in a 

 year, and by wide fluctuations from month to month. 

 The biggest dip in the landings each year usually 

 occurred in the third quarter. 



Of interest is a similar complementary nature in 

 the catches of yellowfin tuna and bigeye tuna in the 

 Hawaiian longline fishery. The peak catches of yel- 

 lowfin tuna are made during the summer while good 



298 



