UC San Diego Library – Scripps Digital Collection

The order Heterosomata, the great group of the flatfishes, has long been of major economic importance in the marine fisheries of the world. Its multiform representatives are the subject of a very extensive and diverse literature which, however, is but a brief prologue to what research can bring to light. This paper is an attempt to contribute to the knowledge of one member of the group, and it is hoped that it may be of some value to intelligent management of the fishery in the future. The specimens of starry flounder for this study were taken during the last four months of 1946 and throughout the years 1947 and 1948 from the waters of Elkhorn Slough, the mouth of the Salinas River and at various localities in Monterey Bay. In Elkhorn Slough the fish were caught in a bobbinet seine 255 cm. long and 94 cm. deep, with hexagonal meshes of 3 mm. diameter. At the mouth of the Salinas River a minnow seine was used for monthly collections made from September, 1946, to February, 1947. This net measured 3 m. long, 1 1/4 m. deep, and had meshes 12 mm. in length. During the period from March, 1947, to August, 1947, the samples from the same locality were taken in a modified beam trawl. This gear had a beam 2 m. long, a depth of 50cm. and length of 4 m. The mesh length was graduated from 4 cm. at the lead line to 2 cm. in the sack. A bag of bobbinetting was sewed around the sack to impound all fish small enough to pass through the mesh of the sack. The fish taken from Monterey Bay were secured from commercial fishermen and wholesale fish dealers. These fish were caught in trammel nets off Santa Cruz; in drag nets off Monterey and Moss Landing; in purse seines off Capitola, Fort Ord, and Moss Landing; and in crab nets off Moss Landing and the Pajaro River.