but too deep for productive fishing. The 

 last catches in that area were taken off 

 Mark Island on September 13. Massachusetts 

 Bay, Cape Cod Bay, and northern Long Island 

 Sound provided excellent fishing through 

 mid-October. A purse-seine catch of 83,000 

 tons established a new modern record in the 

 North Atlantic Area. 



The first fish marking the fall "run" 

 into North Carolina waters were observed by 

 spotting planes in upper Pamlico Sound in 

 the vicinity of Oregon Inlet on October 18. 

 The first catches by a fleet of 49 vessels 

 were taken on October 27 off Drum Inlet. 

 Fishing on several large bodies of mostly 

 age-2 fish continued through November. On 

 December 2 a body of larger, older fish was 

 sighted between Cape Hatteras and Cape Look- 

 out, and the first catches were landed off 

 Drum Inlet on the following day. Because 

 of rough seas, only limited fishing was con- 

 ducted on this huge body of fish during the 

 next five days. Heavy landings during the 

 remainder of the season were corajxssed exclu- 

 sively of age-0 fish which were particularly 



abundcuit in the inshore waters from Cape 

 Lookout to Bogue Inlet. Over 30,000 tons of 

 these small fish were caught during a 5-week 

 period commencing with December 8. Fishing 

 was terminated on January 13, 1956 when the 

 last schools were encountered off Bogue Inlet. 



Data on the 1955 catch, catch per unit 

 of effort, and total fishing effort for the 

 purse-seine fishery axe given in tjible 2. 

 Catch per unit effort was calculated from 

 plant records of daily landings by individu- 

 al vessels cind logbook data. Total fishing 

 effort was calculated from the purse-seine 

 catch and the average catch per set. This 

 was the first year that these statistics 

 were available on a coas-twise basis. 



The average catch per set for the 

 purse-seine fishery in 1955 amounted to 

 26.0 tons. Catch per unit effort for the 

 coast as a whole was highest for the North 

 Carolina fall fishery (38.7 tons), while 

 for the summer fishery it was greatest in 

 the North Atlantic (28.8 tons) and smallest 

 in the South Atlantic (18.8 tons). 



Table 2. — Estimated catch (in tons), catch per unit effort (in tons), and total fishing 

 effort (number of sets), Atlantic Coast menhaden fishery, 1955 



l/Source: Anderson, A. W. and E. A. Power (1957). 



2/lncludes otter trawls, gill nets, haul seines, fyke nets, and floating traps. 



3/Average catch per ptirse-seine set. 



¥/The North Carolina fall fishery normally extends into early January, therefore, the 

 catch total for North Carolina includes January 1956, hut not January 1955- 

 Seasonal hreakdo-wn of the catch obtained from U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, C.F.S. 

 Nos. 1252, I27I+, and 1288. 



^Slight discrepancy due to rounding off of the figures . 



10 



