238 
Proportion of numbers 
AI 
| 
HW 
a fH 
iii 
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 
Fishery Bulletin 119(4) 
0.02 
0.01 
HT 
0.00 . | | ll i 
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 
Total length (cm) 
Proportion of numbers 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
! 
| 
nent! 
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100110120 
Total length (cm) 
Figure 3 
Length—frequency distributions of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) (left panels) and white hake (Urophycis tenuis) (right panels) 
captured in the Gulf of Maine in the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center bottom trawl survey (BTS, black bars) and 
bottom longline survey (LLS, open bars) during (A and B) the spring and (C and D) the fall for the years 2014—2018 combined. 
Proportions at length were derived from indices of stratified mean abundance at length for each survey. 
white hake were present in the spring they were less com- 
mon (0—7% of the sampled fish; Table 2). White hake >100 cm 
TL were rarely captured in the spring LLS, and they were 
caught in low numbers (1—2% of the sampled fish) in the fall, 
with the exception of some high catches in fall 2017 (9.2% of 
the sampled fish; Table 2). The interannual variation of the 
LLS catch was more evident in the fall than in the spring, 
with higher catches of white hake >80 cm TL in 2014 (Suppl. 
Figs. 1B and 2B) (online only) and particularly in 2017 (Suppl. 
Figs. 1H and 2H) (online only). The catch of white hake >80 cm 
TL in the BTS was limited in both seasons (averaging 1.5% 
of the catch in the spring and 1.6% of the catch in the fall), 
and fish 290 cm TL were rare in all seasons and years exam- 
ined (Table 2, Suppl. Figs. 1 and 2 [online only]). 
The BC for the comparison of the BTS and LLS annual 
length distributions of white hake (Table 3) indicates 
lower overlap than was observed for cod. The BCs for 
white hake in spring surveys (BC=0.53-0.84) indicate 
that overlap in distributions was usually higher and more 
variable than that for the fall surveys (BC=0.50-0.67). 
The finding of greater variation in spring is consistent 
with the prevalence of white hake at more stations in the 
fall surveys than in the spring surveys (Table 1). The BC 
for the distributions combined across 2014-2018 is 0.77 
for the spring surveys and only 0.65 for the fall surveys. 
The distributions for combined years of white hake 
catches were based on data from a larger sample size, 
filled in gaps, and decreased the differences by providing 
a more complete distribution than that for individual 
years, as was found with cod. However, the differences in 
distributions between the LLS and BTS were still greater 
for white hake than for cod. 
