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Exploitation
and natural mortality of striped bass in the Santee-Cooper system, South
Carolina.
White, M.G.,
III, and Bulak, J. SC Department of Natural Resources.
In 1997 and 1998, 1,302 striped bass were
marked with anchor tags with return rewards of $10 and $100 to assess
non-reporting.
A portion of these fish were double tagged to assess tag
loss.
Short-term mortality due to tagging was assessed and was negligible.
For both years combined, the recapture rate was estimated as 38%, providing
an estimate of fishing mortality.
In a separate evaluation, a catch curve
was generated from experimental gill netting conducted in December-February
over the past decade.
Total mortality was estimated at 0.65 per year,
indicating a natural mortality of 0.27/year, which is considerably higher
than the 0.15/year assumed in previous evaluation efforts.
If this value is
accurate, it would have important management implications.
Presentation slides |