Outdoors: Red drum stocked into Winyah Bay, Cherry Grove Inlet

A December to remember weather-wise has proven to be a boost to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources' (SCDNR) Marine Stocking Research Program.

Earlier this week, SCDNR biologists and staff released red drum in two area estuaries – Cherry Grove and Winyah Bay.

“This unseasonably warm fall has let our program just keep going,” said SCDNR biologist Karl Brenkert. “We had a longer growing season.”

While stocking 10,000 red drum in the 5- to 6-inch range Thursday into Winyah Bay at the Ballpark Landing in Georgetown, Brenkert noted a water temperature of 17 degrees Celsius, or 62-63 degrees Fahrenheit, well above average for mid-December.

According to NOAA's Winyah Bay-North Inlet Water Temperature Climatology, the typical average water temperature for December 11-20 is 54 degrees.

On Wednesday, Brenkert and crew were about as far north as possible along the South Carolina coast – Cherry Grove Inlet – where they released nearly 1,000 red drum that were just under the legal slot limit for the species of 15-23 inches.

In all, approximately a million juvenile red drum and also 600,000 spotted seatrout have been released through the program this year in South Carolina estuaries, Brenkert said. Other release locations include the Broad River, ACE Basin and the Ashley River.

“We know from previous years' stockings that this number of fish can make a significant contribution to the wild population,” said Brenkert.

The stocking process begins when wild adult red drum and spotted seatrout are captured in Charleston-area waters and transported to the SCDNR lab at James Island. Once at the lab, the adult fish are held in specialized tanks that mimic the natural conditions under which the fish spawn.

Eggs produced in the tanks are incubated and hatch within a day or two. The larvae are then stocked into outdoor nursery ponds at the Waddell Mariculture Center in Bluffton, where they’re raised to the appropriate size to be stocked in South Carolina’s estuaries.

The adult fish are returned to the waters from which they were collected.

In response to cold water temperature events in the winters of 2009-10 and 2010-11, a pilot program was initiated for stocking spotted seatrout, which are susceptible to dying during such events.

Currently, spotted seatrout are being stocked only in Charleston Harbor. But if the program goes well, the species could also be stocked in estuaries along the Grand Strand in years to come.

The stocking program is extra important in estuaries such as Cherry Grove. Where the inlet is small, the fishing pressure is high and there is no documented natural recruitment — or reproduction.

There were 150 tagged red drum among those released Wednesday in Cherry Grove Inlet. A tag number and phone number are on the tags imbedded in the fish.

While anglers are able to legally harvest a tagged red drum if it measures within the 15- to 23-inch slot limit, the best benefit for the Marine Stocking Research Program would be to record when and where the fish was caught, then carefully release it.

Last December, about 500 red drum — most measuring within the slot limit — were released in Cherry Grove Inlet. Brenkert received word of an angler who caught one of the tagged fish just after the 2014 release, then pulled the tag out and tossed the legal fish into his bucket to take home.

“They were legal-size fish,” said Brenkert. “We want healthy resources, we want people to go out and catch fish. We want to make sure the resources are out there for the people who want to use them.

“What gets me more is they would take the tag out and throw it away. We need that data.”

Anglers catching a tagged red drum, or any tagged saltwater fish for that matter, should take note of the tag number and call 1-888-824-7472. For more information on the program, visit www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/stocking/.

Black Sea Bass

There was good news for recreational saltwater anglers at the latest meeting of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council last week in Atlantic Beach, N.C.

The council approved increasing the daily bag limit for black sea bass from five fish per person to seven. If approved by the Secretary of Commerce, the increase could go into effect in the summer of 2016.

This story was originally published December 18, 2015 at 7:57 PM with the headline "Outdoors: Red drum stocked into Winyah Bay, Cherry Grove Inlet."