was also used for the trawl monitoring program, tows there were 

 maintained at the 0.69 km distance used for that program. Because of 

 tidal currents, wind, and varying amounts of material collected in the 

 trawl, tow times for the standardized distances varied slightly and were 

 usually greater in the lower than in the upper river. Tows made during 

 previous years were not standardized by distance or time. Distribution 

 of tow times were examined at each station from 1976 through 1982; mean 

 duration for stations 1 and 2 was 14.7 min and for other stations was 

 9.8 min. Tows with duration greater or less than two standard 

 deviations of the mean were deleted from analysis and calculation of 

 CPUE. For comparisons among years, all catches of winter flounder 

 larger than 15 cm were standardized to either 15-min tows (stations 1 

 and 2) or 10-min tows (all other stations) . The CPUE for each year were 

 plotted and distributions tested for normality with the Kolmogorov 

 D-statistic (SAS Institute Inc. 1982a). The annual mean and median CPUE 

 were determined and a 95% confidence interval was calculated for each 

 median using a distribution-free method (Snedecor and Cochran 1967) . 



The winter flounder caught in each tow were held in water-filled 

 containers until processed. All fish 20 cm or larger were marked with a 

 number made by a 15.9-mm brass brand cooled in a container of liquid 

 nitrogen; the number was changed weekly. Fish recaptured were noted and 

 remarked with a number designating the latest week of the survey. 

 During the third week of the study, all specimens were double-branded to 

 evaluate the loss of marks during the survey period. 



Using the mark and recapture data, the Jolly (1965) model was used 

 to estimate the abundance of all winter flounder 20 cm or larger in the 

 Niantic River during the spawning season. The estimates were obtained 

 using the computer program of Davies (1971) with minor modifications as 

 described in NUSCo (1982), Total abundance estimates were obtained by 

 starting with an initial estimate and then adding the total number of 

 fish joining during subsequent weeks. The estimated abundance of fish 

 less than 20 cm was determined from the following proportion: 



Jolly estimate of f ish^ 20 cm _ estimate of fish< 20 cm 



total trawl catch of f ish^ 20 cm total trawl catch of fish ^20 cm 



