Getting some size and catch limits on whiting, croakers, and spots. Now I know a lot of yall are not into catching these fish, and I am sure a lot of people on this site don’t really care about these fish. However, there was a time when you could go out and fish the beaches and catch what we called “bull whiting” all spring and summer long. Coming home with a cooler full of 14-17 inch whiting was the norm! I bet kids growing up today have never seen a whiting that big, but 30 years ago catching them that size was common. Now I can’t tell you that last time I have caught or seen a whiting that big. When I was a kid fishing with my dad we would usually come home with about 15 whiting per trip and we kept none less than 13 inches. That was my dad’s rule. He showed me pictures of croakers they caught in the harbor back in the 50’s that were huge! 2-3 pounders were not uncommon. It sickens me to walk down the folly pier and see some of these people out there with a cooler full of whiting that are about 7-10 inches long. I am thinking a 12 inch size limit and ten per person. I know a lot of people don’t target these fish now a days, but talk to some old timers and they will tell you many years ago it was a great fishery in charleston.
I stick to the 13" rule myself. We catch them a lot in bohicket creek suprisingly. I have even caught them on live shrimp under a cork along the grasslines. I don’t think a limit on whiting would be a particularly bad thing. I can forsee a problem with spots and small croaker, they are my favorite redfish bait.
Hunter P. Hames
11’ Tarpon 100
19’ Sea Fox 125 merc
Just what we need more restrictions.
fish today work tomorrow
Limits for spot and croaker are in the pipeline for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. most likely a landings quota vs a minimum size in the forseeable future.
Limits are a good thing if they are required. What I mean is they better have good research to back it up, which most of the time they don’t. I can say this is the second place I lived that had restrictions. While I was in Maryland they were in the Striper fishing ban and here with the Red fish. Lets face it they both worked out well, but were needed. Lets not put in laws just for the sake of adding more restrictions. Lets be good stewards of our restrictions so there wont be more restrictions.
A wise man once said “Do as I say not as I do” Good advice when I tell you that.
Maybe we should up the red fish and shark limit and thin out some of them, so the other “unsportsman” fish have a better chance?
The sad thing is we will never see fishing like back in the 50’s. Plain and simple Human growth and sprawl. I remember shad nets in the Edisto river as far up as hwy 21, I also remember numerous 20’ & 30’ holes in the Edisto that are now silted over from run off of Human development.
I can share some more stories similar to your large whiting, like rock fish in the salkehatchie swamp in large numbers, red fin pike and “stump knockers” under every bridge that had water, “tittie” red breast all over the ACE basin, outragous sail catfish (gafftopsail) fishing off a dock at night, Sheep Head off the groins at Edisto beach, to name a couple.
Tittie Bream = a bream so big you have to hold it against your tittie to remove the hook.
Get rid of all the shrimp boats and the place would be over run with them.
Stonoman
quote:you ever been on one?
Originally posted by stonomanGet rid of all the shrimp boats and the place would be over run with them.
Stonoman
quote:
Originally posted by fishboyWould any of yall be in favor of getting some size and catch limits on whiting…
</font id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”>Before I answer your question, please tell me what percentage of whiting are removed from the total whiting population by local recreational fishermen.
BRDs which are required in shrimp nets have greatly reduce bycatch of these species.
I am not sure if it is the percentage of fish that is being removed as much as it is the percentage of fish taken average size . I am not in favor of big bro being involved in our everyday lives but i do believe that in some cases laws are needed to protect what we have. I have seen many people keep whiting that i would deem “to small for tarpon bait”. This, to me, is a problem and it seems that the only way to handle it is the ever so hated regulations set forth by the government. I am not a whiting fisherman but it does seem that most(not all) keep very small fish(you know who you are). Truly this is a problem, as i am not confident in our government to regulate anything properly.
- I’d rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave.
quote:seems kind of silly to be talking about size regs. on a whiting, since according to the SCDNR website the average size is 6-10 inches. I wonder what the size limit would be set to.
Originally posted by jimmyaadamsI am not sure if it is the percentage of fish that is being removed as much as it is the percentage of fish taken average size . I am not in favor of big bro being involved in our everyday lives but i do believe that in some cases laws are needed to protect what we have. I have seen many people keep whiting that i would deem “to small for tarpon bait”. This, to me, is a problem and it seems that the only way to handle it is the ever so hated regulations set forth by the government. I am not a whiting fisherman but it does seem that most(not all) keep very small fish(you know who you are). Truly this is a problem, as i am not confident in our government to regulate anything properly.
- I’d rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave.
quote:
Originally posted by stonoman
Get rid of all the shrimp boats and the place would be over run with them.
Stonoman
you ever been on one?
I have and thank the lord for the shrimpers. Why in the world do we want more regulations, are you a democrat and want to be told what to do by the government and given food stamps and get paid to do nothing
Local Boy, Just having fun.
I’m as conservative as they come and do support all limits as long as they are based on “sound science”. I’m from the Chesapeake and saw what happened to the striper population and witnessed the rebound after the moritorium. I didn’t know the whiting, croaker, and spot stocks were in troble. Then again, every time I fish from a pier there are a few people (probably without a license) filling buckets with 3" fish and anything else that moves.
If two wrongs don’t make a right, try three.
some days, ya just wanna drink the brown liquor real early. this thread could be the impetus
takin’ that 9am thursday drunk again, eh?
trying to make leaps across logic from shrimp boats to food stamps has given me a similar urge…
a little bit of on-topic rambling now: SEAMAP is a federally funded, fishery-independent monitoring program that has existed since 1986. Using NMFS funding, SCDNR has been helping to conduct trawls across the south atlantic bight to monitor abundances of fish, shrimp and crabs.
you can find info about the project and annual reports from their home page: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/mrri/SEAMAP/seamap.html
here is a ten-year summary for the monitoring conducted in the 90’s: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/mrri/SEAMAP/pdf/10yr.pdf
This report shows that spot (~20%) and croaker (~18%) were the most commonly caught fish species in the “inner” coast survey by total number, and whiting were 11th on the list.
Page 52 shows what looks to be a declining density of spot from 1990-1999
Page 56 shows whiting, hard to discern much of a trend
Page 68 shows croaker, looks like a downward trend but with a rebound in '98-99
without poring over numbers for a while, i couldn’t speak to the purported decline in maximum size and relative abundance of larger fishes. that said, the biggest whiting i have ever caught was pushing 2lbs, and it’s a good day when i get one around a pound. I was told 2 years ago by the MRFSS coordinator for south carolina at a boat ramp that he almost never gets information on recreationally caught whiting… but i really hope the new MRIP data collection program will be more successful in putting numbers on the relative impact of recreational fishing on these and other species.
also, my grandfather-in-law has a similar lament regarding 2-3lb croakers that used to be common but seemingly don’t exist anymore. i’ve certainly never caught one over a pound.
in contrast to intensively managed, long-lived species like red drum, these 3 species (also all in the drum family with reds and trout) reach maturity quickly and don’t live terribly lo
Thanks Brock - again, for bringing the SCIENCE to the website!
Awesome
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just one point of view, happy to weigh in!
as fred first pointed out, i have also wondered a lot about shifts in competition for resources due to fishing pressure- for example, back 20+ years ago when my dad started taking me sheepshead fishing on the jetties, it was difficult to find black sea bass of any size there. now that sheepshead are a popular sport and food fish (and many charters make money on them too), it seems the biomass of BSB has increased to fill the niche (rock-scraping/crustacean eating). i think the same may be true in some areas where the redfish schools are pressured hard, and the bonnethead sharks have been able to fill their niche (blue crab and shrimp diet).
this sort of shift in competition for resources has been described for the cod/pollock/haddock fishery in the northeast, and it’s theorized that a “stable shift” has occurred with spiny and smooth dogfish taking over the dominant predatory role in that food chain- possibly to the point that the groundfish can’t compete for resources enough for their population size to rebound.
not saying any of this has happened with whiting, spot or croaker, it’s just an interesting thing to think about, and something that ecosystem-based monitoring attempts to address. it’s easy to say “back in my day the fish were all huge” but it’s difficult to monitor in a consistent and reproducible fashion over years and years so that we can have some idea of what “normal” used to be. without that, the goals for any management would be by nature retroactive and uncertain.
So because some do not catch them in size or numbers there is a problem. Its not because some do not know how to target them. This just happend with snapper and Black sea bass, how do you like that. I agree that you should not keep the small ones but poor folks around here have lived off them because that’s all they had to eat, now you want to take that away from them (food stamps). these folks want to make there own way not count on big brother to give them everything and that is what I was referring to. I have no problem catching them and in good size and numbers. I put some kids on some whiting not long ago, went thru a bunch of bait caught and release all which was 50 to 100 fish. yes there were some 2 and 4 lb fish in there. So drink your brown liquor and go hug a tree
Local Boy, Just having fun.
two more thoughts:
#1: as jimmy pointed out, these species are used very commonly by a LOT of fishermen as bait too, so minimum sizes would complicate things… maybe too much. i, on the other hand, would gladly skip tarpon fishing and eat my bait if it happened to be a few 15+" whiting 
#2: fred, wasn’t trying to say anything about the lack of truth in your recollection of bigger fish back then- in fact, i’m absolutely sure you’re right. now, please drag out some pictures and let’s get measurements on them titty bream!