EFFECT OF MOON PHASE 



Dates of the moon phases were obtained from the 

 1971 Nautical Almanac. Because the beginning of 

 each quarter phase did not occur at the same hour 

 (for example, new moon in one month would begin 

 at 2255 h and in the next month at 0949 h), data for a 

 3-day period for each moon phase were compiled, 

 namely, data for the day before, day of, and day 

 after the beginning of each moon phase. For exam- 

 ple, new moon for July began at 0915 h on the 22nd; 

 data for the new moon period for July were ob- 

 tained for the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd. The data for all 

 species were combined, as data for each species 

 were sparse. 



For the period May through October, the data for 

 South Pass and northwest Florida are presented in 

 Table 13. Full moon appeared to be the best period 

 for South Pass, whereas new moon appeared to be 

 the best for northwest Florida. When the data for 

 the two areas were combined, no particular moon 

 phase appeared to be especially favorable. 



EFFECT OF BOAT SIZE 

 AND TYPE OF SCREW 



For this study, boats were categorized into 10-ft 

 lengths, that is, 10-19 ft long, 20-29 ft long, and so 

 on. Then the numbers of hours fished by boats in 

 each category and the numbers of billfish raised by 

 these boats were compiled. Then the average and 

 the reciprocal, the hours-to-raise-one-billfish, were 

 computed for each boat-length category. 



Preliminary examination of some data obtained at 

 tournaments in Pensacola and South Pass seemed 

 to indicate that larger boats were more successful. 

 When the South Pass data for the entire year were 

 analyzed, the results still indicated that this was so. 

 As shown in Table 14, the raises-per-hour increased 

 with boat size, and conversely, the hours-to-raise- 

 one-billfish decreased with boat size. 



However, when the data for the three Florida 

 ports were combined, as shown in Table 14, the 

 results were not so clear. Results from combining 

 the data for South Pass and the Florida areas did 

 not allow us to conclude that larger boats were 

 more successful. 



When the data in Table 14 were broken down by 

 species, no trends were evident. We could not con- 

 clude that boat size had any effect on success in 

 raising fish. 



Another aspect we examined was the effect of 

 single and twin screws of a boat. For this analysis, 

 the only set of data providing sufficient information 

 was that for the 40-49 ft boats in Destin. The results 

 showed that 40-49 ft boats with twin screws were 

 more successful than 40-49 ft boats with single 

 screw for each species of billfish. The data are 

 summarized in Table 15. More data are needed to 

 corroborate these results, especially with boats of 

 different sizes. 



BAIT PREFERENCE 



The number of hours fished with the various 

 kinds of bait could not be determined with our data. 



Table 13. — Relative abundance of billfishes by moon phase off South Pass, 

 northwest Florida, and the two areas combined, 1971. 



Moon phase 



New Moon 



First Quarter 



Full Moon 



Last Quarter 



South Pass 











No. hrs. trolled 



721.3 



99.2 



742.9 



113.5 



No. billfish raised 



77 



16 



153 



7 



Fish raised per hour 



0.107 



0.161 



0.206 



0.062 



Hrs. to raise 1 fish 



9.3 



6.2 



4.9 



16.1 



Northwest Florida 











No. hrs. trolled 



842.6 



809.8 



620.4 



738.0 



No. billfish raised 



312 



212 



135 



183 



Fish raised per hour 



0.370 



0.262 



0.218 



0.248 



Hrs. to raise 1 fish 



2.7 



3.8 



4.6 



4.0 



Both areas combined 











No. hrs. trolled 



1.563.9 



909.0 



1.363.3 



851.5 



No. billfish raised 



389 



228 



288 



190 



Fish raised per hour 



0.249 



0.251 



0.211 



0.223 



Hrs. to raise 1 fish 



4.0 



4.0 



4.7 



4.5 



286 



