Catching red drum needs pin drop silence and so the regulators are facing difficulties in counting the easily spooked fish. As the drum, the “money fish,” the most-sought-after Lowcountry catch, will be the next species to undergo a federal stock assessment that leaves anglers up and down the coast doubtfully shaking their heads. It is said that assessment results will be use to restrict how many of each species can be caught.
The problem is popular catches such as grouper and red snapper that now face some of the strictest catch limits. Anglers say there simply are more fish out there than the estimates say. The fate of anglers and regulators are hanging on what this count will show. In South Carolina alone, the red drum fishery has been estimated to be worth $600 million per year.
It is found that the drum, also called redfish or spottail bass, is already thrashing around controversy over catch limits. They’ve been fished so relentlessly that as far back as 1981 S.C. Natural Resources began putting limits on the fish. It is difficult for common people of the area to be sure for how long. State regulators have good counts of juvenile and catch-size, or young adult fish, but not the too-big-to-keep, breeding adults. Throwbacks, or discards of unkept fish, are considered a leading cause of death.
Robert Boyles, commission vice chairman and S.C. Natural Resources marine resources deputy director, is confident that the assessment will produce good numbers. Individual states that contribute data have been regularly making trawl counts and surveying catches, says Boyles.
