18 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
surrounding smooth bottom, parts of Cholera Bank are rocky, and it is over these 
rough places that most of the cod congregate. 
A year-round picture of the fish life on the Cholera Bank is made possible by 
the considerable amount of sport fishing that is done there from late spring to early 
winter 8 and even throughout the winter two or three boats generally visit there. 
Our ability to draw inferences as to a migration of cod to the Cholera Bank is 
made possible not only by the many pleasure craft which fish there but also by the 
local methods of fishing. Instead of fishing a locality at irregular intervals and 
drifting about, as commercial hand-line fishermen do, these pleasure boats are to be 
found on the bank every day that weather permits. Furthermore, the boats are 
anchored in approximately the same place, aided by buoys and land ranges. For 
these reasons a better knowledge of the fluctuations of the cod stock can be obtained 
from the reported catches for the Cholera Bank than for any other small ground, 
and, therefore, these catches are one of the best evidences of a cod migration. 
There are good reasons for believing that in the fall migrating cod seek the Cholera 
Bank region as an objective, not necessarily to remain throughout the winter but 
at least as a stopping place. The large number of cod caught there during a winter — 
far more than in any other restricted locality west of Rhode Island- — is in itself 
strong evidence for this belief. Some idea of the number of cod present there during 
the height of the season may be had from the catch of the Giralda, on which about 
100 sport fishermen using rod and reel caught 1,156 cod in four hours on December 
9, 1928. If it were assumed that these fall migrants spread out evenly over the ter- 
ritory bounded by the 30-fathom contour (within which nearly all the known good 
cod bottom west of longitude 70° is found), and that those which reached the 
Cholera Bank were cod that happened to be in line with it, then, measured by the 
catches made on the Cholera, the number of cod migrating south of there would be 
very large. But the catches of cod made off New Jersey during the winter and 
spring by no means suggest that any such vast number of cod are present along that 
part of the coast, as would be the case if the hundred thousand pounds caught each 
fall around the Cholera were an unselective sample. 
It is particularly important that although the Cholera Bank is less than 1 square 
mile in area and although it is fished intensively during November and December 
the stock of cod there is maintained throughout this period. This can only mean 
that new migrants are arriving daily in large numbers, otherwise the fish would 
soon be “caught up.” That very few migrants arrive after December is proven by 
the sharp reduction in January in the number of cod caught per unit of effort, for at 
this time there are scarcely enough fish to satisfy the few pleasure craft that venture 
out on favorable days. 
Further information concerning the status of the cod in the Cholera Bank region 
has been furnished by the masters of fishing boats, particularly by Capt. William 
W. Stephens and Capt. Jacob Martin, of Sheepshead Bay, N. Y., who have fished 
for many years on the grounds off western Long Island and northern New Jersey. 
Their experience with the cod in this region agrees with what has already been stated, 
namely, that the cod strike in the end of October and are abundant locally until 
the end of the year, after which only scattering fish are found. Captain Martin 
* During the summer as many as 20 to 40 or more pleasure craft carrying in the aggregate a thousand or more passengers 
fish daily on the Cholera Bank for sea bass ( Centropristes striatus) and other species. A lull in the fishing occurs early in October, 
but with the first cod the number of boats is again increased until the cod are depleted in numbers and winter storms blow. 
