Deanna, UR- Red Drum Studies

Since Red Drum is an extremely popular sport fish species here in Florida, and also known to be a decent meal, their populations are of interest for conservation reasons. Thusly, resulting in regular stock assessments and enhancement studies. One study I found focused on the movement patterns of adult red drum here in Florida lagoons. In fact this study was done in a northern part of the Indian River Lagoon and Mosquito Lagoon.


IRL and Mosquito Lagoon - location for movement
pattern study

For this study forty-four red drum were caught, tagged and released from May of 2006 through June 2007. Fish in this study were caught by various methods, either different types of nets (some targeting red drum schools), some were donated by local fisherman and others were caught on hook-and-line (which will also be my method when it comes to my IRP). And of these forty-four fish, "All fish exceeded the 457–685 mm (18–27″) total length slot size in Florida and were not legally harvestable" (Reyier, E.). These fish were sedated, had a few scales removed, coded acoustic transmitter was inserted in each fish, and they were weighed and measured. After the sedation wore off the fish were safely released. This study tracked the forty-four fish over the time period of May 2006 until September 2008, and most of these fish had returned to or remained in this estuary for this time period. Eleven of these fish had left the area and never returned and, ten had been tracked for several months than disappeared (suggesting death or removal of the tracking device). This study proves what I had previous learned (from the FWC website) that red drum remain in estuaries and other inland water bodies until they get larger and then move into the ocean (which seven of the eleven fish in this study were tracked actually did this) some returning multiple times before spawning and after spawning season.

Example of a tagged red drum.

Another study was done in Tamps Bay, and focused on stock enhancement focusing on recreational fisheries. This study took different information from stock assessments (age, mortality, population, catchability, voluntary release rate, etc.), and all things considered, this study determined that stock enhancement may increase the socioeconomic objectives associated with recreational fishing but do come at a cost. This was shown by the increase in the total fishing effort and the satisfaction (of the fisher) in certain stock enhancement scenarios is directly related to an increase in the amount of vulnerable fish Camp, V., 2014).

 

FWC's stock enhancement hatchery - this is actually for
 several different important marine fish
species and bivalves.

This study brought to my attention that stock enhancement for red drum is not a popular thing. In fact, the only study I have come across about it discusses how Florida only does small-scale stock enhancements for red drum, and most of which are research based (Camp, V., 2013). While Texas is known for large-scale red drum stock assessment (they release millions of red drum a year). This study states that stock enhancement in Florida is not large-scale due to fairly low survival rate of the released red drum. However, like this study states, could be due to "lack of stakeholder motivation to advance production level enhancement" (Camp, 2013). Which could simply mean the stakeholders are satisfied with the increased numbers of wild red drum over the last twenty years.

 

 

Citations:
Reyier, E., Lowers, R., Scheidt, D., Adams, D. (2011). Movement patterns of adult red drum, Sciaenops ocellatus, in shallow Florida lagoons as inferred through autonomous acoustic telemetry. Environmental Biology of Fishes, 90(4), 343-360. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com.db06.linccweb.org/article/10.1007/s10641-010-9745-3

Camp, E. V., Lorenzen, K., Ahrens, R. M., & Allen, M. S. (2014). Stock enhancement to address multiple recreational fisheries objectives: an integrated model applied to red drum Sciaenops ocellatus in Florida. Journal Of Fish Biology, 85(6), 1868-1889. doi:10.1111/jfb.12548

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date

 

Camp, E. V., Lorenzen, K., Ahrens, R. M., Barbieri, L., & Leber, K. M. (2013). Potentials and Limitations of Stock Enhancement in Marine Recreational Fisheries Systems: An Integrative Review of Florida's Red Drum Enhancement. Reviews In Fisheries Science, 21(3/4), 388-402. doi:10.1080/10641262.2013.838075