Spawning Season and First-Year Growth of Adult Bluefish from the New York Bight

Abstract

Bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix in the western north Atlantic spawn in the South Atlantic Bight in spring and the Mid-Atlantic Bight in summer. We performed back-calculations to length at age 1 from scales of fish captured during June–September 1986 and 1987 from Long Island, New York, to determine if spring- and summer-spawned fish could be identified among summer-spawning adults captured in the New York Bight. Analysis of gonads confirmed that the summer spawning season off New York is a temporally distinct event occurring from late June to late August, with peak activity in July. All fish used for back-calculations were in spawning condition, and most had lengths at age 1 characteristic of a spring birth date (mean length, 26.5 cm). This observation does not support the hypothesis that spring and summer spawners are two different stocks of fish. Contemporary stocks of adult bluefish along the mid-Atlantic coast may consist largely of spring-spawned fish.