Table 14. — Relative abundance of billfishes by boat size for South Pass, north- 

 west Florida, and the two areas combined, 1971. 



Boat length (ft) 1 



1C-19' 



20'-29' 



30'-39' 



40'-49' 



50'-59' 



60'-69' 



South Pass 















Hours trolled 



20.0 



296.1 



1.046.2 



862.2 



— 



68.5 



No. billfish raised 



1 



26 



142 



127 



— 



14 



Fish raised 















per hour 



0.050 



0.088 



0.136 



0.147 



— 



0.204 



Hrs. to raise 















1 fish 



20.0 



11.4 



7.3 



6.8 



— 



4.9 



Northwest Florida 















Hours trolled 



42.1 



695.3 



1,092.8 



4.142.5 



1,163.8 



60.0 



No. billfish raised 



3 



130 



182 



1,049 



278 



4 



Fish raised 















per hour 



0.071 



0.187 



0.167 



0.253 



0.239 



0.067 



Hrs to raise 















1 fish 



14.1 



5.3 



6.0 



4.0 



4.2 



14.9 



Both areas 















Hours trolled 



62.1 



991.4 



2,139.0 



5,004.7 



1,163.8 



128.5 



No. billfish raised 



4 



156 



324 



1.176 



278 



18 



Fish raised 















per hour 



0.064 



0.157 



0.152 



0.235 



0.239 



0.140 



Hrs. to raise 















1 fish 



15.6 



6.4 



6.6 



4.3 



4.2 



7.1 



'Meters = ftxO.3048. 



We were able to determine the days during which 

 various baits were used. Therefore, the only mea- 

 sure of effort we could use was the number of days 



Table 15. — Comparison of billfishes raised between boats 

 40'-49' long with single screw and with twin screws, Des- 

 tin, 1971. 



Type of screw 



Hours trolled 



Blue marlin 

 No. raised 

 No. raised per hour 

 Hrs. to raise 1 fish 



White marlin 

 No. raised 

 No. raised per 

 Hrs. to raise 1 



hour 

 fish 



Single 



686.5 



Twin 



2,965.3 



19 



108 



0.028 



0.036 



35.7 



27.8 



36 



267 



0.052 



0.090 



19.2 



11.1 



Sailfish 







No. raised 



96 



436 



No. raised per hour 



0.140 



0.147 



Hrs. to raise 1 fish 



7.1 



6.8 



All billfish ' 







No. raised 



151 



821 



No. raised per hour 



0.220 



0.277 



Hrs. to raise 1 fish 



4.5 



3.6 



'Includes unidentified billfish. 



each bait was used. Since the bait to which a billfish 

 was raised was seldom recorded, and since a billfish 

 will often raise to one bait and then go over to 

 another, we decided that the bait the billfish took 

 would be the best data to use for a study of bait 

 preference. Therefore, for this analysis, our unit of 

 measure for bait preference was the number of fish 

 hooked per day with each bait. The results of our 

 analysis are presented in Table 16. 



Various natural and artificial baits were fished 

 but only the three most frequently used, mullet 

 (Mugil cephalus), ballyhoo (Hemiramphus sp.), and 

 bonito (Euthynnus alleteratus) strip, provided 

 sufficient data for analysis. Under the category of 

 "others" are included a wide variety which were 

 used very infrequently and sporadically such as 

 dusters, jigs, spoons, Kona heads, pork rind, 

 ladyfish, strip dolphin, Spanish mackerel, croaker, 

 cigar minnow, squid, needlefish, etc. 



Because mullet is such a favored bait in the South 

 Pass area, data for ballyhoo and bonito strip are 

 sparse. Although the numbers of billfishes hooked 

 per day using "other" baits are very similar to the 

 rates using mullet as bait, conclusions regarding 

 bait preference can not be made owing to the large 

 assortment of baits lumped together in the "others" 

 category. 



287 



