5.22 Geographic ranges 



Although incidental in tuna longline catches 

 throughout the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans, 

 sailfish are specifically sought around the edges of the 

 continental shelf in many tropical areas of the world. 

 The most important fisheries are concentrated in 

 southeastern Florida; the northern and northeastern 

 Gulf of Mexico; the Bahamas; the Caribbean region; 

 Venezuela; the eastern tropical Pacific between 

 Southern California and Chile; Hawaii; New Zealand; 

 eastern Australia; Kenya to Cape Town; South Africa 

 and Ghana to Senegal. 



Since sport fishing is a leisure activity, the areas of 

 maximum fishing effort may or may not coincide with 

 the areas of greatest density of sailfish. Within the 

 distributional range of sailfish, some areas of greatest 

 fishing intensity may be correlated with the density of 

 human population on the adjacent land mass. The 

 seaward extent of the fishery is similarly affected by 

 the desires of the angler. Thus, in most cases, the 

 range is governed by the optimum distance offshore 

 which can be attained during a day trip. 



5.23 Depth ranges 



Merrett (1968a) showed that sailfish are caught 

 with equal frequency on all hooks on a longline which 

 fish at depths from the surface down to about 160 m. 



5.24 Conditions of the grounds 

 Nothing found in the literature. 



5.3 Fishing Seasons 



5.31 General pattern of seasons 



Sailfish are caught during all seasons of the year. 



5.32 Dates of beginning, peak, and end of 

 seasons 



Sailfish are most abundant in the Atlantic longline 

 catch in spring and summer (Wise and Davis, 1973). 

 The sport fishery in the western Atlantic captures 

 sailfish all year long with best fishing in winter and 

 early spring. 



Williams (1970) stated that the best sport fishing 

 for sailfish at Malindi, Kenya, is from October to 

 March with peak catches in December and January. 



Howard and Ueyanagi (1965) indicated that in the 

 eastern Pacific sailfish are caught in good numbers off 

 Acapulco all year long, but peak fishing is during the 

 winter months. 



5.33 Variation in date and duration of season 



Williams (1970) stated that the start and finish of 

 the period of peak abundance of sailfish in the sport 

 fishery at Malindi, Kenya, shows a marked 



relationship to annual fluctuations in overall en- 

 vironmental conditions in the area. 



5.4 Fishing Operations and Results 



5.41 Effort and intensity 



The oceanic longline fishery, initially a Japanese ef- 

 fort but recently joined by China, Cuba, Republic of 

 Korea, Venezuela, and others, is the primary commer- 

 cial fishery utilizing sailfish. The unit of effort com- 

 monly used in this fishery is number of fish caught per 

 100, 1,000, or 10,000 hooks fished. 



In the Atlantic, peak Japanese fishing effort was in 

 1965 when more than 97 million hooks were fished, 

 resulting in a catch of 118,000 "other marlins," a 

 category which includes spearfish and sailfish. Catch 

 per 10,000 hooks for this category rose from 39.0 in 

 1959 to a high of 189.0 in 1967. 



Kume and Joseph (1969a) presented data on 

 catches from the eastern Pacific that indicated a high 

 abundance of sailfish in this area. Almost 330,000 

 sailfish were caught in 1965, and catch per 100 hooks 

 was 9.4. Catch per effort declined from 10.6 per hun- 

 dred hooks in 1964 to 5.8 in 1966. Total fishing effort 

 in this area declined from a high of 62 million hooks in 

 1964 to 47 million in 1966. 



5.42 Selectivity 

 Nothing found in the literature. 



5.43 Catches 

 See 5.41. 



6 PROTECTION AND MANAGEMENT 



6.1 Regulatory (Legislative) Measures 



6.11 Limitation or reduction of total catch 



The State of Florida has a catch limit of two sailfish 

 per day per person. 



6.12 Protection of portions of population 

 Nothing found in the literature. 



6.2 Control or Alteration of Physical Features of 

 the Environment 



Nothing found in the literature. 



6.3 Control or Alteration of Chemical Features of 

 the Environment 



Nothing found in the literature. 



6.4 Control or Alteration of Biological Features 

 of the Environment 



Nothing found in the literature. 



117 



