11-21 



Winter flounder are "groundf ish" ; hence, it is not surprising 

 that the most effective nuithod for sampling both juveniles and adults 

 has bt>en the oLter trawl (i''igure 11-3) . Trawl catcho;; wore relatively 

 high during the first survey year (1971) and dropped to about half that 

 catch in the second year (1972) . Since that time there has been no 

 substantial change in the annual catch. There have been no indications 

 of any peculiarities of spatial distribution. Winter (January-March) 

 and late summer (August-September) have been periods of consistently low 

 catch (Figure 11-3) . A possible explanation is temporary emigration to 

 Long Island Sound in response to temperature conditions. 



Mean length of those winter flounder caught in trawls has con- 

 sistently been 6-18 cm (Figure 11-4); according to Berry et al . (1965) 

 these fish belong to the O, I and II age classes. We infer from Poole 



(1966) and Lux (1973) that most of these fish are predominantly Age O 

 and I individuals. Very few adult fish were commonly caught. Warfel 

 and Merriman (1944) similarly caught few adult winter flounder while 

 seining in Morris Cove, New Haven Harbor. Paradoxically, we caught 

 virtually no winter flounder by seine; it is unknown whether the differ- 

 ence in catch between Warfel and Merriman (1944) and our study was due 

 to differences in the fishing of the net or to a reduction in the abun- 

 dance of winter flounder in the shallows . Seines fished at Millstone 

 Point (NUSCO, 1977) also caught few winter flounder. Winter flounder 

 were abundant in trawls taken in Long Island Sound (Richards, 1963), the 

 Mystic River estuary (Pearcy and Richards, 1962) at Millstone Point 



(NUSCO, 1977) and at Shoreham, Long Island (LILCO, 1970). 



Impingement of P. americanus at New Haven Harbor Station has 

 been relatively high, averaging 81 individuals per day (primarily juvenile 

 fish) , or 30,000 per year (Figure 11-5) . This rate of impingement is 

 far higher than that observed at Bridgeport (UI, 1978) , Montville, 

 Norwalk Harbor, Middletown or Devon; roughly 5 to 10 times that observed 

 at Millstone Point (NUSCO, 1977) , Salem Harbor or Northport (Stupka and 

 Sharma, 1977) ; and it is slightly higher than niimbers impinged at Oyster 

 Creek, Brayton Point and Mystic Station (Stupka and Sharma, 1977) . This 



(Text continued on page 11-26) 



