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Red Drum Beat a Steady Rhythm to Recovery RALEIGH, N.C. (May 10) — Red drum have a rosier outlook, according to the May issue of Wildlife in North Carolina magazine.
But don’t expect coastal fisheries managers to ease restrictions soon on the saltwater trophy fish. Despite recent signs of recovery, red drum fisheries may still be vulnerable. Declared overfished in 1997, red drum fell under state and federal restrictions. Commercial harvests were limited to incidentally netted fish. Recreational catches were reduced to a daily creel of one fish between 18 and 27 inches long. The intent of the size limit was to protect larger, spawning stock. Those restrictions — combined with catch-and-release fishing and wider-spread use of circle hooks, which kill fewer fish — have produced an apparent turnaround in red drum stocks. Much of the evidence is anecdotal, but federal officials report that Atlantic states from Florida to Maine have shown progress toward recovery. And N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries officials find red drum increasingly turn up in samples. A full-fledged assessment of fisheries stocks next year should give a true indication of the red drum recovery. Until then — and perhaps for years to come — caution prevails. “If we go for a short time, then relax the regulations, with the increased effort on this ‘recovered’ species, we will be right back where we were,” one fisheries official told the magazine. “Then we have to start all over again.” Wildlife in North
Carolina is a monthly publication of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.
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