is near the end of the winter fishery, and the 1962 inshore tag- 

 ging was done in September, near the end of the summer fishery. 



Fish just tagged were sometimes caught in subsequent tagging 

 tows. If these fish appeared lively, they were re-released and 

 records were made of the fact. 



The mesh in the cod ends of trawls used to catch the fish for 

 tagging had a stretched measure of about 90 mm. This mesh re- 

 tains flounders down to 20 cm or so in length (Clark et al. 1958; 

 Lax 1968). We caught no summer flounder smaller than 31 cm, 

 and we, therefore, assume that the entire size range of fish was 

 sampled in relation to its abundance and that none escaped 

 through the meshes. 



Each tag consisted of two plastic Peterson disks, 13 mm 

 diameter, joined by a stainless steel pin passing through the 

 dorsum of the fish. One disk was printed with return instruc- 

 tions; the other carried a serial number. 



A reward of $1.00 was paid for a returned tag alone, and 

 $2.00 for a tag with the fish. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries 

 port samplers, who were stationed in ports of landing, received 

 most of the tags and fish returned by commercial fishermen. Sex 

 and length of returned fish were recorded. Positions for recap- 

 tures by the commercial fleet usually were in the form of loran 

 bearings and depths, which generally were accurate to within 10 

 km or less. 



Recreational fishermen usually mailed in their recovered tags. 

 They frequently gave the recovery position in terms of land- 

 marks, such as an inlet, bay, or point. These positions probably 

 were at least as accurate as those for commercial returns. 



For tags discovered in fish markets or processing plants there 

 was no information on recovery position; however, usually it 

 was possible to identify them as commercially caught. For a few 

 of the tags that were mailed in, no data could be obtained. Both 

 sources of unplaced tags made up 3.8% of the total returns. 

 While they were of no value for charting fish movements, they 

 were useful in measuring total return rates and are included in 

 the results presented below. 



RESULTS 



Offshore Tagging, April 1961 



From 1 to 6 April, summer flounder were caught and tagged 

 in depths of 80-145 m (Fig. 1). Most of the 1,833 fish tagged 

 were from between Hudson and Block Canyons in about 90 m 

 depth, approximate position lat. 39°55 'N, long. 72 "00 'W (loca- 

 tion 4, Fig. 1). Recoveries were obtained until August 1963, at 

 which time a total of 155 had been reported, 8.4% of those 

 released. 



To compare the length distribution of recaptured fish with 

 that of the tagged ones we used the fish lengths recorded at the 

 time of tagging rather than those obtained at recovery. The size 

 distributions, at tagging, of the fish released in 1961 and of 

 those subsequently recaught (Fig. 2) show that most of the fish 

 tagged were about 31-50 cm in length, with some over 60 cm; the 

 mean length was 38.8 cm. The lengths, at tagging, of the re- 

 captured fish were similar to those of the tagged ones (Fig. 2), 

 suggesting that there was no significant differential in tagging 

 mortality with fish size and that the size of recaptured fish was 

 representative of the tagged population. The mean length of 

 recaptured fish was also 38.8 cm. 



All except one of the recoveries from 1961 releases were from 

 fish released at location 4 in Figure 1 ; the following discussion 

 applies to movement from this release point. 



In April- June 1961 there were 67 tag recaptures, all with 

 recapture positions noted. Of these, 37 were caught in April on 

 offshore areas in the vicinity of tagging (Fig. 3). In addition, 

 three late April recoveries were caught on inshore areas of Long 

 Island. The other 27 recoveries were caught in May and June on 

 inshore grounds, primarily from the ocean side of Long Island. 

 One, however, was from Long Island Sound, three were from 

 the Rhode Island shore, and two were from Vineyard Sound 

 (just south of Cape Cod). The returns during this quarter 

 established the time of movement from offshore to inshore 

 grounds as April and May, at least for the area dealt with in this 

 report, i.e., north of lat. 39 °N. 



There were 47 summer recoveries (July-September 1961), 46 

 of which had return locations noted. They were caught mostly in 

 bays and sounds from Long Island to southern New England 

 (Fig. 4). Many of these recoveries were from more easterly in- 

 shore areas than the spring ones, although there were also 

 several from off western Long Island and Long Island Sound. 

 Six returns were from as far to the east as Vineyard and Nan- 

 tucket Sounds. There were no summer recoveries from south of 

 Sandy Hook, N.J., or from east of the elbow of Cape Cod. 



There were just three recoveries in the fall of 1961 (October- 

 December), for one of which no return area was given. The 

 other two were from south of Martha's Vineyard and Nan- 

 tucket, in an area intermediate between inshore and offshore 

 grounds, suggesting that these fish were in the process of moving 

 offshore for the winter (Fig. 4). One of these was caught in Oc- 

 tober, the other in December. 



There were 28 recoveries during January-March 1962, all of 

 which were from offshore, and 15 of them came from the vi- 

 cinity of release in the previous spring (Fig. 5). In addition, 10 

 others were caught well to the east of this, near Veatch Canyon, 

 suggesting that the fish had moved eastward. The other three 

 fish were recaught south of the release point, indicating that 

 some southerly movement had taken place. 



Of the five recaptures reported for April-June 1962, two were 

 caught on offshore grounds in April and May and the other 

 three were caught on Long Island inshore areas in May and June 

 (Fig. 5). While there were few returns in this calendar quarter, 

 the pattern of return locations was similar to that of April-June 

 in 1961 (Fig. 3). 



1961 OFFSHORE GROUNDS 



TAGGED (N=l,833) 



RECOVERED (N=155) 



45 50 55 



TOTAL LENGTH (CM) 



Figure 2. — Length-frequency distributions of summer flounder lagged in April 

 1%I on offshore grounds and of (hose subsequently recaptured. (All lengths are 

 those obtained at the time of tagging.) 



