Fishery bulletin of the Fish and Wildlife Service - NOAA

38 FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE
and in seines and on hook and line on the south side of Long Island. The number of
returns from Montauk reached a peak during the first 10 days of November. Thereafter
tags were sent in from bass caught progressively farther south as time went on.
No marked fish were caught north and east of the original point of release during
the fall and winter, and it was plainly evident from the examination of commercial
fishermen's catch records, as well as from tag returns, that an intensive migration to
the south had taken place. Scattered returns of tags throughout the winter and early
spring months from New Jersey, Delaware, the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, and
North Carolina showed that striped bass may go great distances on their southern
migration.
In 1937 added tagging experiments were undertaken in Connecticut and Long
Island waters to obtain additional information on the northern migration in the spring
and the return to the south in the fall. A group of 103 striped bass were marked and
released at Montauk, Long Island, N. Y., from May 15 to 19, 1937, and 14 of these,
13.6 percent were subsequently recaptured. None of these returns came from points
to the south of Montauk, all recaptures being in Long Island Sound, on the New York
MIGRATION ROUTE OF STRIPED
BASS TAGGED AND RELEASED
AT MONTAUK, L l , N V
MAY 15-19. 1937
FIGURE 27.—Migration routes of striped bass tagged nod released at Montauk, L. I., N. Y., May 15-19,1937. The number of fish
tnggcd was 103, the number of returns 14 (13.6 percent of the total). Note that there were no returns from the south and contrast
with the results of tagging from the same area In the fall as shown in figure 28 (see table 18).
and Connecticut coasts, or from Rhode Island and Massachusetts (see fig. 27 and
table 18). Such results gave added evidence that these bass were being tagged near
the end of their northern migration, and that an eastward extension of this movement
was still taking place in May and June.
From October 25 to 27, 1937, 303 bass were marked and released at Montauk,
from the same nets and in exactly the same place as those that were tagged in the
sprung. Six months later 95, 31.3 percent, of these fish had been reported. The
only recaptures to the north of the point of release, until the following spring, occurred
almost immediately after tagging took place and were so few in number and so minor
in scope that they may be considered insignificant. The longest movement to the
north that was recorded in the fall was less than 10 miles. On the other hand, recaptures
to the south and west of the area where the tagged fish were released were so
numerous as to make it certain that these fish were taking part in an intensive southern
migration at that tune of year (see fig. 28 and table 19). Many returns in the fall,
winter, and early spring months from the south side of Long Island, New Jersey,
Delaware, Chesapeake Bay, and North Carolina as far south as Pamlico Sound,
indicated the approximate extent and speed of the migration, and further amplified