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Fishery Bulletin 111(3) 
Figure 1 
Spatial distribution of samples of reef fish species (black circles) 
collected in chevron traps during 2 long-term, fishery-independent 
survey programs in the southeastern U.S. Atlantic — the Marine 
Resources Monitoring, Assessment, and Prediction Program (1990- 
2011) and the Southeast Fishery-independent Survey (2010-11) — 
for examination of the relationship between soak time, fish accu- 
mulation, and catch of 8 reef fish species. Note that black circles 
overlap in many instances. Gray lines indicate 35- and 70-m depth 
contours (derived from bathymetry data), and arrows indicate the 
approximate path of the Gulf Stream. 
portunistically even though they were not selected ran- 
domly for sampling in a given year. Third, new hard- 
bottom stations were added during the study period 
through the use of information from fishermen, charts, 
and historical surveys. These new locations were in- 
vestigated with a vessel echosounder or drop cameras 
and sampled if hard bottom habitat was present. We 
assumed that the catch of each species was influenced 
similarly at all stations by the various predictor vari- 
ables (described later). All sampling for this study oc- 
curred during daylight hours between March and Octo- 
ber and was conducted on 1 of 4 vessels: MARMAP and 
SEAMAP-SA used the RV Palmetto (1990-2011), and 
SEFIS used the RV Savannah (2010-11), NOAA 
Ship Nancy Foster (2010), and NOAA Ship Pisces 
( 2011 ). 
Chevron fish traps were deployed at each sta- 
tion sampled in this study. Chevron traps were 
constructed from plastic-coated, galvanized 
2-mm-diameter wire (mesh size=3.4 cm 2 ) and 
shaped like an arrowhead that measured 1.7 
mxl.5 mx0.6 m, with a total volume of 0.91 m 3 
(Fig. 2) (Collins, 1990). The mouth openings of 
traps were shaped like a teardrop and measured 
approximately 18 cm wide and 45 cm high. Each 
trap was baited with 24 menhaden ( Brevoor - 
tia spp.): 16 were attached to freely accessible 
stringers and 8 were placed loosely inside. Traps 
typically were deployed in a group of 6. The mini- 
mum distance between individual traps was ap- 
proximately 200 m to provide some measure of 
independence between traps. 
Because the primary purpose of MARMAP/SE- 
FIS sampling was to provide standardized catch 
information for reef fish species in the SEUS, a 
soak time of 90 min was targeted for each trap. 
We were not able to soak traps for a wide range 
of experimentally chosen amounts of time. How- 
ever, for many different reasons, soak time was 
somewhat variable, ranging from 9 to 270 min 
(mean: 97.6 min and standard deviation of the 
mean [SD] = 12.8) (Fig. 3). All trap deployments 
that did not fish properly (e.g., traps that dragged 
in current) were excluded from analysis. Soak 
times were variable enough to allow an examina- 
tion of the ways in which fish catch was related 
to variability in soak time. 
We included in our analyses the 8 most com- 
monly caught reef fish species in the MARMAP/ 
SEFIS trap surveys: Black Sea Bass ( Centropris - 
tis striata), Tomtate ( Haemulon aurolineatum), 
Red Porgy ( Pagrus pagrus), Bank Sea Bass ( Cen - 
tropristis ocyurus), Gray Triggerfish (Batistes ca- 
priscus), Vermilion Snapper ( Rhomboplites auror- 
ubens ), Stenotomus spp., and Sand Perch (Diplec- 
trum formosum) (Table 1). Stenotomus spp. may 
represent more than one species, but, for the pur- 
pose of discussion, we will refer to this taxon as 
a single species and the group of taxa studied as 
8 species of fish. Fish coloration, shape, and meristics 
were used to identify individuals to genus and species 
levels with field guides (e.g., Robins et al., 1986; Hoese 
and Moore, 1998; McEachran and Fechhelm, 1998; Car- 
penter, 2002; Humann and Deloach, 2002; McEachran 
and Fechhelm, 2005). Black Sea Bass, Red Porgy, Gray 
Triggerfish, and Vermilion Snapper are targeted by 
commercial and recreational fishermen in the SEUS. 
The 8 species included in our analyses were the most 
common species caught in the traps in the MARMAP/ 
SEFIS surveys by both frequency of occurrence and 
mean catch per trap (Table 2). Additional species were 
not analyzed if their frequency of occurrence was less 
