Multidecadal Evidence of Recovery of Nearshore Red Drum Stocks off West‐Central Florida and Connectivity with Inshore Nurseries

Abstract

The importance of defining and quantifying ontogenetic movements and connectivity between juvenile and adult fish populations, especially for exploited species, has been well documented. Furthermore, the persistence of strong year‐classes can be used to track the success of regulations that contribute to the increased survival and escapement of fish into the adult population. Size and age structures of Red Drum Sciaenops ocellatus were documented within the Tampa Bay estuary, in southwest Florida, using haul seines and trammel nets (1989–2008), and in nearshore Gulf of Mexico waters using a commercial purse seine (2005–2008). In the estuary, juvenile Red Drum (<100‐mm TL) were collected from low‐salinity backwater areas, and peaks in the annual relative abundance were apparent. In the estuary, Red Drum older than age 4 (>800‐mm TL) were rare. Red Drum from nearshore gulf waters ranged from 2 to 35 years of age (674–1,074‐mm TL), but most were greater than age 4. After back‐calculating ages from Red Drum collected in the estuary and in nearshore gulf waters, we found that specific year‐classes of Red Drum, driven by strong juvenile recruitment, were disproportionately represented in the adult spawning stock. We evaluated the long‐term effectiveness of fishing regulations as a tool for rebuilding local adult Red Drum stocks by comparing data on size and age structures with results from earlier research conducted in the same geographic area. Adult Red Drum in nearshore waters off Tampa Bay were significantly longer, heavier, and older than were individuals collected a decade earlier, suggesting rebuilding of local Red Drum stocks. These observations validate the utility of long‐term, multigear monitoring efforts to track populations from the estuary to nearshore coastal waters.Received June 27, 2013; accepted April 1, 2014

Assessing reproductive behavior important to fisheries management: a case study with red drum, Sciaenops ocellatus

“…, Winner et al. ), and we hypothesize that these are spawning aggregations and that similar aggregations occur in coastal waters off Charlotte Harbor, 132 km to the south.…”

“…The results of the nonlethal sampling were ground‐truthed by comparing them to results based on sacrificed fish from a prior study that collected red drum by purse seine in coastal Tampa Bay waters (Winner et al. ). We acoustically tagged two population components, 60 adults from Tampa Bay coastal waters and 20 subadults from the mouth of the Tampa Bay estuary (Fig.…”

“…, Winner et al. ). However, it is not prescriptive, as year‐round residents have been documented in the high salinity estuarine environment of Indian River Lagoon, Florida, USA (Reyier et al.…”

“…Red drum are moderately long‐lived, living to >30 yr (Winner et al. ), and highly fecund, producing multiple batches of pelagic eggs (capable of producing >3 million eggs per batch; Wilson and Nieland ) during a late‐summer/fall spawning season, from August to November (Beckman et al. , Murphy and Crabtree ).…”

“…In Tampa Bay, Florida's largest open‐water estuary, fish recruit to the main estuary at approximately 6 months–1 yr and 150–300 mm total length (TL), remaining until approximately age 3 or 4 (500–800 mm TL), when they seek higher salinity waters at the mouth of the estuary (Winner et al. ). This pattern of ontogenetic habitat shifts with recruitment to coastal or offshore adult habitat has been repeatedly reported for red drum throughout their range (Wilson and Nieland , Bacheler et al.…”