Growth, Mortality, and Age Composition of a Lightly Exploited Tilefish Substock off Georgia

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Abstract
We collected 1,351 male and 632 female tilefish Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps off Georgia with bottom longlines between May 1982 and August 1983. Anal fin rays formed a single annulus yearly between May and October. Tilefish reached 33 years of age and growth of males were significantly faster than females. Length-frequency histograms indicated that exploitation had yet truncated the size structure of this substock. Males were fully recruited to the fishery at age 12 (mean standard length 606 mm) whereas females were fully recruited at age 10 (mean standard length 525 mm). Three extimates of instantaneous total mortality ranged from 0.10 to 0.25; most of this was attributable to natural mortality. Because these fish are long-lived and slow-growing and possess low natural mortality rates, they are vulnerable to overexploitation by a relatively low fishing effort. Consequently, fishing effort may have to be tightly regulated if optimal yields are to be sustained in this fishery.