The mean weekly CPUE for all stations and for selected stations 

 through the second week in April (spawning period) are given on Table 

 16. No other statistical analyses were made on this data but the potential 

 exists for further comparisons. The apparent relationship between the 

 magnitude of the mean and the standard deviation in most instances 

 indicates that some type of transformation is desirable when working 

 with this data. 



The relationship between the mean weekly CPUE (Table 16) and the 

 weekly population estimates calculated (Tables 2-9) was determined for 

 all weeks from 1975 through 1981, all weeks from 1976 through 1981, and 

 for the spawning season from 1976 through 1981 (Table 17, Figs. 3-5). 

 The 1975 data were eliminated from the latter two analyses because of 

 uncertainty in two of the weekly estimates and because the weekly 



estimates were for weeks after the spawning period. The CPUE-population 



2 

 relationships were not entirely adequate as r for the regression using 



all years, 0.617, decreased to 0.425 without the 1975 data. A slightly 



better fit was generated for the data from just the spawning season 



(0.493). Much variability exists among the weekly Peterson estimates 



and the uncertainty in relationship between these estimates and the 



CPUE, which may also be subject to error because of its method of calculation, 



should be investigated in further detail. 



Conclusions and Recommendations 



Overall, the winter flounder population estimate program is ambitious 



in scope and has provided a long time-series of data necessary for 



impact analyses. It can be looked upon with pride by Northeast Utilities 



because of the willingness of the scientists involved to continually 



improve techniques necessary to improve the reliability, accuracy, and 



precision of the estimates. 



33 



