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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.
Stripers thriving at Lake Moultrie part of Santee-Cooper
system in South Carolina.
Published: Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 11:19 p.m.
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.
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