Saturday morning my family, a few friends, and I went fishing at the jetties for sheephead. We fished the rocks for about an hour with no luck so we moved over to Dynamite hole and dropped anchor. We threw out a shrimp on a light tackle rod and caught a small whiting while we dropped the bigger gear down. Then we caught and released a 12-13 inch Black sea bass. After a few toadfish we used the whiting as live bait and caught a spiny dogfish. It wasn’t a great day fishing but we still had a good time!
Not wanting to be negative nancy here but I am fairly sure the only species of sharks you can keep under 54" are Sharpnose and bonnetheads. With that being said, that is a nice Sharpnose you have there. Or a 7’ kid.
The regulations book has nothing on them whatsoever. Either way. I was going off of this information:
The primary users of South Carolina’s estuaries are the Atlantic sharpnose, the sandbar, the bonnethead, the blacktip, the finetooth, and the scalloped hammerhead. The spinner, the bull and the blacknose shark are also observed to a lesser degree. These sharks usually arrive in the estuaries in the spring when the water temperatures reaches 19-20? C and start moving offshore in the fall when temperatures drop below 26? C. Under the current regulation there are only two sharks that recreational anglers can keep that they are likely to encounter under normal fishing circumstances:
Atlantic sharpnose shark
Bonnethead shark.
All of the other species listed above must have a minimum fork length of 54 inches. Fork length is measured from the tip of the shark’s nose to the fork in the caudal fin (tail). A shark with a 54" fork length would have an approximate total length of 5 1/2 to 6 feet.
Other sharks that may be encountered inshore that are not primary users of the estuary are the Nurse and Lemon Sharks. Sharks that may be encountered nearshore are all of the above species as well as the tiger, sand tiger, and dusky Sharks and in the winter months the smooth and spiny dogfish. In addition to long-term data collection and population monitoring, a study is being conducted on site fidelity in bonnethead sharks utilizing Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tags and external tags. We hope to learn more about bonnethead’s utilization of our estuaries as well as migration and eternal tag loss.
South Carolina Department of Natural Resources - Phone Numbers | Accessibility | FOIA
Rembert C. Dennis Building, 1000 Assembly Street, Columbia, SC 29201
? 2013 All rights reserved. webmaster@dnr.sc.gov
I said I was fairly certain, and now I believe I was wrong. Can’t believe there is still a fish out there without any regulations on it whatsoever. The DNR regulations manual says nothing about it either way. At least they could have said something about it.
