Resumen:
The stripped weakfish (Cynoscion guatucupa) has a wide latitudinal distribution (22° S-43° S) and it is object of fishery in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina (SW Atlantic). In this last country, it is mainly captured in the coastal region of Buenos Aires Province by means of a fleet, which has between 20 m and 30 m length. In Argentina, the average landings in the last 5 years were 9,900 t. It is the second commercial species among the coastal groups. There are two main fishery areas of this species: the Argentinean-Uruguayan Common Fishing Zone (AUCFZ) and the El Rincón area, in the South of bonaerense littoral. Due to the importance of this species, it is necessary to define an index of annual abundance to allow a suitable diagnosis of the fishery condition. The General Linear Model is a suitable model to calculate this index. The factors used in this work were: year, trimester, 4 length categories and 5 sub areas. All of them were significant and reflect spatial-temporal changes in the abundance of this species. The model explained 34% of the total variability in the AUCFZ and 46% in the El Rincón. In general, the trends of catch per unit effort (CPUE) were similar and increasing in both areas, registering a greater increase in the internal areas. On the other hand, the fleet displacements between the areas and the reduction of the total fishery area caused a rise in the annual CPUE and a fall of the captures. These captures were dominated by adults but with an important presence of juveniles in the coastal zone off Mar del Plata city.
