Fishery bulletin of the Fish and Wildlife Service - NOAA

ABSTRACT
Plankton collections made at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, Va., yielded specimens
of 45 species of marine fishes that were recognized. As a result of these weekly collections
during the summer and biweekly collections during the winter, from May to October 1929,
from April to December 1930, and during January and March 1931, sufficient data were
acquired to provide distributional and descriptive data on 31 of the 45 species recognized.
Larval and postlarval stages of the gray sea trout, or weakfish, Cynoscion regalia; the
bluefish, PomalomuB saltatrix; the butterfish, Poronotus triacanthus; the harvestfish, Peprilus
alepidotus; and the stargazer, Astroscopus gullatus, are described and illustrated.
Collections of juvenile gray sea trout by seine and trawl indicate that this food fish
attains an average total length of 16 to 20 cm. at the end of its first year of growth in lower
Chesapeake Bay.