0.565 nx 



spawning period. The estimate was similar to that determined by Howe 

 and Coates (1975) for winter flounder found south of Cape Cod and was 

 somewhat higher than those for fish from Great South Bay, New York 

 (Poole 1969) and Rhode Island (Saila et al. 1965). 



Movements 



From December 1980 through September 1983, 4,978 winter flounder 

 were tagged with Petersen discs (Table 12). Most of the fish were 

 released In the Nlantlc River (46%) , including nearly all fish tagged 

 during 1983, and in Niantlc Bay (31%). Rates of recapture were similar 

 among years and ranged from 17 to 23% of those tagged. Discounting 

 recaptures from NUSCo sampling activities, which accounted for about 

 one-third of the total (97% of these were released alive again) , the 

 recapture rates were 13 to 15% for each year. The non-NUSCo returns 

 were mostly from the sport (59%) and commercial (36%) fisheries. Very 

 few (0.5%) of the tagged winter flounder were impinged on the MNPS 

 screens and more than half of these were fish released very close to the 

 Unit 1 Intake structure. Sport fishermen took most of the tagged winter 

 flounder removed from the Nlantlc River and Jordan Cove; nearly equal 

 numbers were taken by the sport and commercial fisheries for all other 

 stations except Bartlett Reef, where twice as many were taken by 

 commercial fishermen. 



Sport fishing catches mostly occurred during spring and summer in 

 Nlantlc River and Bay and in New London County waters. The commercial 

 fishing returns for Nlantlc Bay and River fish were greater in 1980 and 

 1981 because a trawler was then operating extensively in Nlantic Bay and 



29 



