and included Chesapeake Bay and coastal 

 waters northward to the southern shore of 

 Long Island, 



3, The large catch in 1959 was the result of 

 the exceptionally abundant 1958 year class. 

 This year class accounted for 90 percent 

 of the catch in the Chesapeake Bay and 

 South Atlantic Areas, 58 percent of the 

 catch in the Middle Atlantic Area, and 5 

 percent of the catch in the North Atlantic 

 Area. This was the first year since 1952 

 that age-1 fish contributed the major share 

 of the catch in the Middle Atlantic Area 

 and the first year on record that they 

 constituted more than a fraction of 1 per- 

 cent of the catch in the North Atlantic 

 Area. The 1956 year class (age-3 fish) 

 dominated the catch in the North Atlantic 

 Area and the North Carolina fall fishery. 

 In both fisheries, age-3-and-older fish 

 continued to constitute only a small per- 

 centage of the catches. 



4. The mean lengths and weights in e£ch area 

 except the North Carolina fall fishery were 

 the smallest for any year from 1955 to 

 1959. Mean lengths and weights of age-1 

 fish in every area were the smallest for 

 the period. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 



We wish to express our appreciation to the 

 vessel captains and pilots who kept logs of 

 daily fishing activities, and to plant owners 

 and operators who provided facilities for 

 processing the catch samples and made avail- 

 able their records of vessel landings. 



LITERATURE CITED 



JUNE, FRED C. 



1961. Age and size composition of the 

 menhaden catch along the Atlantic coast 

 of the United States, 1957; with a brief 

 review of the commercial fishery. U.S. 

 Fish and Wildlife Service, Special Scien- 

 tific Report — Fisheries No. 373, 39 p. 



JUNE, FRED C, and WILLIAM R. NICHOLSON. 

 1964. Age and size composition of the 

 menhaden catch along the Atlantic coast 

 of the United States, 1958; with a brief 

 review of the commercial fishery. U.S. 

 Fish and Wildlife Service, Special Scien- 

 tific Report — Fisheries No. 446, 40 p. 



JUNE, FRED C, and JOHN W. REINTJES. 



1959. Age and size composition of the men- 

 haden catch along the Atlantic coast of 

 the United States, 1952-55; with a brief 

 review of the commercial fishery. U.S. 

 Fish and Wildlife Service, Special Scien- 

 tific Report — Fisheries No. 317, 65 p. 



1960. Age and size composition of the 

 menhaden catch along the Atlantic coast 

 of the United States, 1956; with a brief 

 review of the commercial fishery. U.S. 

 Fish and Wildlife Service, Special Scien- 

 tific Report — Fisheries No. 336, 38 p. 



POWER, EDWARD A. 



1961. Fishery statistics of the United States, 

 1959. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 

 Statistical Digest No. 51, 457 p. 



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