Association du merlu Merlucius Merlucius (L.) et du merlan bleu Micromesistius Poutassou (ROSSO) dans le Golfe de Gascogne

During its seasonal campaigns from July 1965 to November 1967, the Thalassa performed 190 trawl passes in the Gulf of Gascony. These catches, spread out from 35 to 300 metres between the parallels of 44"50' and 47°50' N, showed some similarities between the hake's and the blue whiting's distribution. The highest yields of one frequently match high quantities of the other and vice versa. However, this link is not so clearly demonstrated in all seasons. Moreover, we have noticed that the average weight yields of the two species increase steadily with depth (figure 1). Only sea beds of 180 metres provided different results: whereas blue whiting is in especially large numbers there, hake is less present than at neighbouring levels. It seemed worthwhile to us to provide a few particulars for what already looks like an association of these gadoids.