Marine - Species - Spot

Recreational Fishery in SC

Spot are usually targeted by anglers during the fall as larger fish start their seasonal migration offshore to spawn. Recreational catches have increased in recent years after declining during most of the 1980s and '90s.

Commercial landings for spot in South Carolina have varied widely with peak landings occurring in the 1970’s, but have since steadily declined since the early 1980’s. Commercially landed spot have been small, averaging less that ten thousand pounds annually over the last decade. Harvest comes almost entirely from the shrimp trawl fishery as by-catch and is sold mostly as scrap fish.

Additional Graph Information

Commercial and recreational catches are measured in number of individuals or pounds of fish caught. Changes in catch among years may be the result of changes in abundance, changes in fishing effort, or both.

On each graph, the horizontal dotted lines above or below the "10 year average" represent one "standard deviation" unit, which is a measure of how variable the annual data are around the 10-year average. In general, the area between one standard deviation above the mean and one standard deviation below the average includes approximately 68% of the values. Approximately 95% percent of observations in the data set are found within two standard deviations of the average.