THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GROWTH FOR SPANISH MACKEREL UNDERYEARING IN THE YELLOW SEA AND BOHAI SEA

Spanish mackerel Scomberomorus niphonius is one of the maincommercial fishes in the China sea. Based on the biological date of 8627 sa-mples which collected from commercial catches in the Yellow Sea, Bohai Sea andnorthern East Sea during June to March (next year) in 1963--1991, this paperdiscribed the characteristics of growth of spanish mackerel underyearing as fol-lows: 1. The relationship between body length (L) and body weight (W) is W =8.7231×10^-8L.⁰⁸³⁸ (r = 0.9994). The parameter branges within 2.9868--3.0355 indifferent year 2. The general pattern of the growth is expressed by von Bertalanffy growthequation as; L_1 = 422. 841-e^{(-0.18838)(t-2.18)}; W_t = 629. 661-e^{-0.1388)(t-2.18)8}. The grow-th inflection for body weight is in 10.11 (a period of 10 days) and the growth israpid before November 1 for body length and during August 1 to November 1 forbody weight. 3. There are fluctuations of the growth for the different year. The growthdiffers to 1963--1979 since the autumn population of spanish mackerel underyear- ing has be exploited by trawl fishery after the end of 1970s and the parameters ofgrowth change as: L_1∞) from 438.00mm to 399 .06mm,W_∞ from 6/5.82g to 512.16g,k from 0.1336 to 0.2307, the growth inflection for body weight from 10.61 to 8.74(a period of 10 days) and the main growth stage for body weight from 7--16 to 6-13 (a period of 10 days) (i. e. from August 11-November 11 to August 11-October11). 4. It is consideration to the characteristics of growth of spanish mackerelOctober 21 for achievement to the rational utilization of its resource.