Table 2. — Monthly occurrence of young Gulf menhaden in collections by surface trawl from 

 East Bay and East Bay River, 1970 and 1971. 



1970 



1971 



'Includes all menhaden caught durina month. 



any month is based on two subsamples repre- 

 senting the largest catch at each of two locations 

 (Bay and River or upper and lower Bay). 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE 

 OF GULF MENHADEN 



Only larval menhaden (smaller than 33 mm) 

 were captured from the Pensacola Bay bridge 

 (Table 1), and larvae and juveniles (larger than 

 32 mm) were caught from East Bay and East Bay 

 River (Tables 1 and 2). Table 1 presents monthly 

 occurrence of primarily larval menhaden in col- 

 lections by channel net from East Bay and East 

 Bay River, and Table 2 shows data on primarily 

 juveniles captured by surface trawl from the 

 same area. Occurrence of young for March and 

 April is included in both tables because at this 

 time many menhaden were either large larvae or 

 small juveniles readily captured by either net. 



Larval menhaden were captured at the Pensa- 

 cola Bay bridge during a 5-mo period, December 

 to April (Table 1). They ranged in size from 10 to 

 32 mm TL and were obtained from both flood 

 and ebb-tide periods. If early growth is similar to 

 that of yellowfin menhaden as described by Hef- 

 tier (1970), the presence of fish as large as 26 mm 

 early in December and as small as 17 mm near 

 the end of April allows us to infer that the dura- 

 tion of spawning is at least from late October to 

 late March. Suttkus (1956) obtained larvae in 

 Louisiana only through March and presumed that 



spawning ended in February. Abundance of lar- 

 vae in some February collections from the Bay 

 agrees with the results of a fecundity study by 

 Suttkus and Sundararaj (1961) that indicated a 

 spawning peak in January. Smaller sizes occurred 

 in the Bay in March and April than in the pre- 

 vious 2 mo. Gunter and Christmas (1960) stated 

 that Baldauf (1954) hypothesized that occurrence 

 of small menhaden near the end of the influx of 

 larvae in a Texas estuary may represent a second 

 spawning peak. Average monthly sizes of young 

 from the Bay were smaller than those found by 

 Suttkus (1956) and by Springer and Woodburn 

 (1960), indicating that this species enters Pensa- 

 cola estuaries at a smaller size than it does on the 

 Louisiana and southern Florida coasts (or that 

 collecting methods of the other two studies did 

 not as readily catch the smaller young). 



In East Bay and East Bay River, menhaden 

 larvae first occurred during December in collec- 

 tions by channel net (Table 1), and larvae as 

 small as 26 mm TL were found as late as mid-May 

 in catches of juveniles by surface trawl (Table 2). 

 By May, most of the larvae had metamorphosed 

 into juveniles. The young school from the time 

 they enter the estuary. Their early growth in 

 East Bay and East Bay River was in the upper 

 Bay and lower River, where salinities usually 

 were less than 10 o/oo. Few larvae were found 

 in the River, but after February the range of 

 juveniles extended as far as 3 miles (4.8 km) up 

 river. Juveniles occurred in freshwater but never 



