menhaden were made in the Middle Atlantic 

 Area. Since 1964 the largest annual landings 

 have been from Chesapeake Bay. These 

 increased catches from Chesapeake Bay have 

 been achieved by extending the fishing season 

 into late October and November and by 

 increasing the fishing effort. Over 209o of the 

 Chesapeake Bay catch now occurs in November 

 whereas almost no fish were landed in Chesa- 

 peake Bay in November before 1964. 



The 14-year (1955-68) mean average age of 

 Atlantic menhaden in the catch is 3.7 years in 

 the North Atlantic, 2.3 years in the Middle 

 Atlantic, 1.4 years in Chesapeake Bay, 1.4 

 years in the South Atlantic and 1.7 years in the 

 North Carolina Fall Fishery. The average age 

 for all areas combined is 1.67 years. In recent 

 years about 90% of the total catch has been 

 immature fish (less than age-3). 



Since the early 1960's almost all ages of 

 menhaden caught in the Chesapeake Bay, 

 Middle Atlantic and North Atlantic fisheries 

 have been considerably larger than average. 

 Thus, the decline in the catch of Atlantic 

 menhaden would have been even more drastic 

 if this significant increase in the growth of the 

 fish had not occurred. 



The decline in the catch of Atlantic men- 

 haden was due principally to a series of poor 

 year classes following the superabundant 1958 

 year class. There is a strong indication that the 

 reduced stocks may subsequently have been 

 overfished and that this contributed to the 

 continued reduced abundance and failure of 

 the resource to recover. 



Estimates of the year-class strength of Atlan- 

 tic menhaden are made by a variety of 

 methods: (1) relative abundance indices of 

 juvenile menhaden in the tributaries, (2) the 

 catch of age-0 menhaden in the fishery, and 

 (3) the catch of age-1 menhaden in the fishery. 



An analysis of mortality rates of Atlantic 

 menhaden, based on catch-effort data, suggest 

 that total mortality (natural and fishing) would 

 be about Z= 1.20. 



A Schaefer-type analysis of the catch-effort 

 data for Chesapeake Bay strongly suggests that 

 there has been at least economic overfishing if 

 not biological overfishing as well. 



A relation between stock size, as measured 

 by the catch-per-unit-of-effort in the Middle 

 Atlantic fishery, and the size of the resulting 



year class indicates that the present spawning 

 stock is considerably below optimum size. The 

 data suggest the desirability of increasing the 

 escapement of menhaden into the Middle 

 Atlantic Area. This also would result in an 

 increase in the size of the spawning population. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



Many colleagues have made helpful sugges- 

 tions concerning this paper. In particular I 

 acknowledge the comments of George Hirsch- 

 horn of the Biometrics Institute, National 

 Marine Fisheries Service Biological Laboratory, 

 Seattle, Washington. Also, I appreciate the 

 comments of the staff members at the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service Center for Estuarine 

 and Menhaden Research, Beaufort, N.C. Many 

 of the staff members at that laboratory, in 

 particular the Fishery Aides, were instrumental 

 in collecting the data utilized in this paper. 



LITERATURE CITED 



Henry, Kenneth A., and Joseph H. Kutkuhn. 

 1970. Research in fiscal year 1969 at the 

 Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Biological 

 Laboratory, Beaufort, N.C. U.S. Fish Wildl. 

 Serv., Circular 350, 49 pp. 



Henry, Kenneth A. 1965. Biological investiga- 

 tions of purse seine fishery for Atlantic 

 menhaden. U.S. Fish Wildl. Serv., Spec. Sci. 

 Rep. Fish. 519, 12 pp. 



1968. Exploitation and biological research 

 of Atlantic menhaden Trans. Nat. Symp. on 

 Ocean Sci. and Eng. of the Atlantic Shelf, 

 Philadelphia, Pa., March 19-20, 1967, pp. 

 265-273. 



1969. Menhaden Fisheries. In: Frank E. 

 Firth (ed.) Encyclopedia of Marine 

 Resources, pp. 393-398. Van Nostrand Rein- 

 hold Co., N.Y. 



Higham, Joseph R., and William R. Nicholson. 

 1964. Sexual maturation and spawning of 

 Atlantic menhaden. U.S. Fish Wildl. Serv., 

 Fish. Bull. 63(2): 255-271. 



24 



