south in the winter months and generally did not move as far 

 north in the summer as the New England releases did. In all of 

 these more southern studies, there was a trend towards fish 

 movement to the northeast with the passage of time. All of this 

 coincides with the general view that the major nursery grounds 

 for this species are in estuaries and bays from Virginia to North 

 Carolina and that many of the fish tend to move northward as 

 they grow older (Poole 1966). 



To provide more information on this apparent northward 

 dispersal with age, Murawski (footnote 3), studying movements 

 of tagged summer flounder in New Jersey coastal waters, com- 

 pared the lengths of fish recaptured from north and south of the 

 release areas to see if there was a difference in fish size with 

 direction of movement. He found no consistent differences for 

 those releases. As we mentioned here earlier, some of the recap- 

 tures from our 1962 inshore releases were recaught in 1963 and 

 1964 on winter grounds far south of the release areas (Figs. 10, 

 12). To examine the possibility that there might be a north-south 

 size difference in these offshore recaptures, we calculated the 

 mean lengths, at tagging, for fish that were recaptured in 

 January-March 1963 and 1964 north of lat. 39 °N and those 

 caught south of this latitude. The results of this (Table 3) suggest 

 that the recaptures north of lat. 39 °N were about 2 cm longer. 

 The small numbers of fish involved in these samples, however, 

 make it difficult to settle this question. 



Table 3. — Numbers of tag recaptures north and south of lat. 39°N 

 in January-March 1963 and 1964 from 1962 inshore releases, and 

 mean lengths and length ranges, in centimeters, at time of tagging. 









Number of 



Mean 



Length 





Area 





recaptures 



Length 



range 



1963 



North of lat. 



39 °N 



84 



45.4 



36-60 



1963 



South of lat. 



39 °N 



22 



42.8 



38-50 



1964 



North of lat. 



39 °N 



20 



44.6 



40-52 



1964 



South of lat. 



39 °N 



8 



42.6 



40-45 



Most of the tag recaptures of our study were made during the 

 January-April offshore fishery and during the inshore season 

 from June-September (Tables 1, 2). A large proportion of recap- 

 tures in any one year was in the January-March quarter. In all 

 cases these were caught by the commercial fleet since summer 

 flounder is not available to anglers in winter. Landing statistics 

 show that this quarter usually is the time of greatest commercial 

 catches of summer flounder for New England trawlers. 



Few tag recoveries were obtained in October-December, in- 

 dicating that the fishing pressure on this species was low then. 

 This probably was related to the dispersed nature of the summer 

 flounder population during the fall migration to offshore areas. 

 An advantage of a low fishing mortality at this time is that the 

 fish are relatively undisturbed during spawning, which occurs 

 during their offshore movement to winter grounds (Smith 1973). 



Who recaptures the tagged summer flounder depends largely 

 upon when and where the fish are tagged. Recreational 

 fishermen recovered 26.5% of our April 1961 offshore releases 

 and only 3.6% of those in the September 1962 inshore series. 

 Most of the angler recaptures from the 1961 tagging were from 

 Long Island bays, which are areas of great sport fishing activity. 

 Angler returns from the 1962 releases, on the other hand, were 

 mostly from New England waters, where the angler population 

 is smaller. 



Recreational fishermen caught a large proportion of tagged 

 summer flounder released in past studies on inshore New York 



and New Jersey grounds, in contrast to the results from the in- 

 shore New England releases. In tagging studies in Great South 

 Bay, Long Island, for example, up to about 60% of summer 

 flounder recaptures were made by anglers (Westman and Neville 

 1946; Poole 1962); in tagging off New Jersey, sport fishermen 

 caught up to 60% of the summer flounder released near Sandy 

 Hook and up to 49% of those tagged off Cape May (Murawski 

 footnote 3). 



Although no age studies have been done in conjunction with 

 the tagging, some inferences about age composition and growth 

 rate of summer flounder can be drawn from the size composi- 

 tions, by sex, of the recaptured fish (Fig. 6). In the fish tagged 

 offshore in April 1961, about the time when growth starts for 

 the year, the male modal length is about 35 cm, which is close to 

 the length calculated from otoliths of 345 mm at age 3 given by 

 Smith and Daiber (1977); likewise, the mode for females at 

 about 40 cm is close to their calculated length at age 3 of 380 

 mm. For the fish that we tagged in September 1962 in Block 

 Island and Nantucket Sounds (Fig. 6), there are modes for males 

 at about 40 cm, which correspond closely with the 397 mm 

 calculated length at age 4 of Smith and Daiber. While no clear 

 modes appear in the size frequencies of females in the 1962 

 samples, there is some evidence of modes at about 45 cm. This 

 value, also, is close to the 453 mm length calculated at age 4 by 

 Smith and Daiber. Fish measured in September can be expected 

 to have completed most of their growth for that calendar year, 

 and their lengths generally would differ little from those at the 

 time of formation of their next annulus. 



As indicated earlier, small flounder, less than about 28 cm in 

 length, are uncommon off New England. Coupled with this 

 fact, the size distributions of Figure 6 suggest that most summer 

 flounder do not arrive in New England waters until they have 

 reached age 3, although it seems likely that some of the faster 

 growing 2-yr-olds also make this migration. 



The reason for describing the size and age composition in 

 some detail here is its potential value in measuring summer 

 flounder recruitment. If modes in size frequencies taken in New 

 England can be identified with age group 3, then it should be 

 possible to get an estimate of recruitment of 3-group fish to the 

 New England area by obtaining length frequencies by sex of 

 summer flounder from limited special otter trawl surveys for this 

 species. From the data of Figure 6 and from information on the 

 pattern of seasonal distribution, a good time of year to attempt 

 such a survey would be in the late spring, when the fish have 

 arrived on inshore New England grounds such as Block Island, 

 Vineyard, and Nantucket Sounds. 



LITERATURE CITED 



BIGELOW, H. B., and W. C. SCHROEDER. 



1953. Fishes of the Gulf ot Maine. U.S. Fish Wildl. Serv., Fish. Bull. 53, 

 577 p. 

 CLARK, J. R., F. D. McCRACKEN, and W. TEMPLEMAN. 



1958. Summary of gear selection information for the commission area. Int. 

 Comm. Northwest Atl. Fish., Ann. Proc. 8:83-99. 

 LUX, F. E. 



1968. Codend mesh selection studies of yellowtail flounder, Limanda ferru- 

 ginea (Storer). Int. Comm. Northwest Atl. Fish., Redbook (Part 3):101- 

 109. 

 LUX, F. E.. W. D. HANDWORK, and W. F. RATHJEN. 



1974. The potential for an offshore squid fishery in New England. Mar. 

 Fish. Rev. 36(12):24-27. 

 NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE. 



1980. Marine recreational fishery statistics survey, Atlantic and Gulf coasts, 

 1979. Natl. Mar. Fish. Serv., Curr. Fish. Stat. 8063, 139 p. 



15 



