Fishery bulletin of the Fish and Wildlife Service - NOAA

FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE
0,005-inch transparent celluloid, so that the numbers and legends were covered
and protected. The first 1,500 tags bore the words, RETURN TO FISH & GAME,
HARTFORD, CONN. In the remaining tags this inscription was changed to,
RETURN TAG, etc., etc., since it was found that a certain number of returns were
being lost because the original wording was sufficiently misleading so that some
individuals thought the whole fish should be sent in and were unwilling to part with
their catch. Each tag was attached to the fish by means of a pin. This pin was put
through the center hole in one disc and pushed through the flesh of the back between
the two dorsal fins—one-fourth to one-half inch below the dorsal contour of the body—
hi a horizontal plane. The matching disc was then put on that part of the pin that
POUND NET CATCHES
AT FORT PONO BAY,
LONG ISLAND, N. Y.
BY FIVE-YEAR PERIODS
1884 — 1928
^l_ I924~t928 ^^
FIODBE 24.—Numbers of striped bass caught In the pound nets et Fort Pond Bay, L. I., N. Y., from 1884 to 1928, for each 8 days
during the fishing season, by б-year periods. The catches have been weighted to make them equivalent to a fishing Intensity
of 10 pound-nets throughout (see figure 4, table 4). Note that the catches are made only In the spring and fall of the year
It Is of interest to note that the size of the spring catches has shown a sharp decline over the period covered by this record, while
the size of the fall catches has remained about the same during this time.
had come through the flesh on the other side of the body, and the pin was crimped
over with a pair of finely pointed pliers in such a way that both discs fitted closely
against the back of the fish. The printing on the tags was faced out so that it was
immediately evident. It sometimes happened, however, that over periods of more
than several months Bryozoans and other forms attached themselves to the tags
and obscured the printing and even the color of the discs, so that it was necessary to
scrape the entire surface with a sharp knife before the inscription became legible.
Mussels (Mytilus edvlis) over 1 cm. long have been found on the tags at tunes, and
barnacles (Balanus balanoides) covering the entire disc were by no means uncommon.
It became evident from the recapture of tagged individuals that it was best to crimp
the phi to such a degree that there was less than one-sixteenth of an inch of free space