Tagging Red Drum in North Carolina: Esitmating Exploitation, Mortlaity, Tag Retention, and Tag Reporting Rates for Increased Accuracy of Stock Assessments

Abstract

Red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) is the largest inshore game fish in North Carolina, making it highly valuable to the state’s economy. In the 1980’s red drum were overfished due to lack of regulations, causing stock assessments and fishery management plans to be implemented. In 2015, the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission stated a need for more research to be conducted in the form of a tagging study to better determine mortality rates and fill in gaps in models due to data limitations. This study estimated rates for red drum tagged and released in 2014 by NC Division of Marine Fisheries. Tag reporting and tag retention rates were calculated by hand, while mortality rates were calculated using the Hoenig model (Age-Independent Instantaneous Rates Model of Jiang et al. (2007) Incorporating Catch and Release Tag Returns) in the fishmethods package in R. This project serves as the model for how tagging data for other species at NCDMF to be analyzed.