Marine - Species - Spotted Seatrout

Abundance of Species

Abundance of sea trout is calculated from the SC DNR trammel net survey.

Spotted seatrout is a sub-tropical species vulnerable to "cold kills". During the winter of 2000-2001, temperatures dropped sharply and stayed low for an extended period of time. As a result, a large proportion of the spotted seatrout population died. Preliminary data (not shown) suggest that a similar, but less severe, kill occurred in January 2010.

A general increase in abundance was observed from 2002-2009, likely due to favorable environmental conditions, a decrease in bag limit, and increase in minimum harvest size.

Additional Graph Information

Graphs of abundance show relative annual abundance in South Carolina waters based on surveys conducted by the SC Department of Natural Resources.

Abundance is presented relative to the average of the 10 most recent years. Unlike graphs of the recreational and commercial fisheries catch, the abundance graphs use survey data that have been standardized to allow direct comparison among years.

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.