The commercial fishing vessel Contender (106' LOA), operating out of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, conducted twelve exploratory fishing and gear development trips (90 DA) to the upper continental shelf waters of southern New England and the Middle Atlantic Bight.   The gear consisted of commercial bottom trawls and towing depths ranged from 200 to 1800 m.  The fishing periods were from November 12, 1994 to January 27, 1995 and from September 14, 1995 until November 7, 1995.  Commercial landings from these trips included four species of hake, monkfish, grey sole, squid, royal red shrimp, butterfish, summer flounder, and lobsters.  Other commercial and potentially commercial species present in the catch included turbot, redfish, red crab, black dogfish, grenadier, and blue hake. The report discusses the  significant operational and managerial problems that need to be overcome to successfully fish the upper slope in a sustainable manner.   Forty references on deep water fishing are annotated and included in the report.