units). Many changes in the offshore sampling program, however, have 

 made that data less comparable from year-to-year. One of the most 

 important parameters estimated from ichthyoplankton data is larval 

 mortality. Since studios in previous years weren't designed to provide 

 this information, sampling before 1980 provided mostly inadequate results. 

 Complex behavior of larvae and physical environmental factors in the 

 Niantic River have confounded the determination of mortality. A workshop 

 was held during the Fall of 1982 to develop a comprehensive study plan 

 and sampling design to properly measure larval growth, movements, 

 mortality, and abundance in the Niantic River. Another topic of concern 

 is the source of winter flounder larvae that are entrained. It is 

 suspected that sources other than the Niantic River also contribute 

 larvae for entrainment but complex movements of both larvae and water 

 masses would require an extremely careful study design in order to 

 resolve this question. 



The winter flounder is the most abundant species taken in the trawl 

 monitoring program. The present sampling program can detect a 15% 

 difference in the log transformed annual mean trawl catch (alpha = 0.05, 

 beta = 0.80). This level c»f detection can be considered excellent for 

 this type of monitoring program and represents one technique available 

 to measure potential impact of Millstone operations. Some inconsistencies 

 were noted in the calculation of CPUE and various analyses used, which 

 should be resolved. 



The winter flounder is also the most frequently impinged fish. An 

 analysis of the data showed that the precision of the impingement estimate 

 could be improved greatly by reallocating sampling effort. Sampling 

 should be increased in colder months, especially January and February, 



