Commercial Red Drum Fishing in the Gulf of Mexico Region  

Posadas, B.C. Mississippi MarketMaker Newsletter, Vol. 7, No. 3, Feb. 7, 2017.

Red Drum Commercial Landings

According to Gulf FINFO (http://gulffishinfo.org/), red drum (Fig. 1, sciaenops ocellatus) are also known as “channel bass, redfish, reds, spottail bass." The commercial harvest and sale of red drum is prohibited in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida state waters and Gulf federal waters. As a result, Mississippi accounts for all commercial red drum landings in the Gulf.

Fig. 2 shows the commercial landings of red drum harvested from the Gulf of Mexico Region since 2000. The commercial landings databases are compiled from the National Marine Fisheries Service website. On average, about 31,528 pounds of red drum were landed each year (standard deviation = ± 11,562) from Jan. 2000 to Dec. 2015. Since 2000, Mississippi supplies 19 percent of total domestic landings, while 78 percent are landed from North Carolina. There is clearly a huge shortage of supply of wild-caught red drum to satisfy local demand. As stated in Gulf FINFO website, “most red drum which are currently available in the local market is farmed, primarily from Texas, or imported from Latin America.” 

Red Drum Businesses Registered in MarketMaker

Thirty-three charter boats for-hire businesses registered in MarketMaker offer to take recreational fishermen to catch red drum. Click this LINK to view the search results online. 

Twelve seafood and fish markets registered in MarketMaker sell red drum. Click this LINK to view the search results online. 

Economic Contribution of Red Drum Commercial Fishing

The economic contribution of red drum commercial fishing to the Mississippi economy was estimated using IMPLAN (http://implan.com/) software and the 2013 input-output data for Mississippi. Sector 17 of the 2013 IMPLAN input-output data, the commercial fishing sector, was used to represent commercial red drum fishing. The base IMPLAN model estimated the economic contribution of commercial red drum fishing with the assumption that the local purchases coefficient was 100%.

The total landing values of red drum in the Gulf of Mexico Region in 2015 reached $155,493, which were all harvested from Mississippi state waters. The total economic contribution of commercial red drum fishing in 2015 reached $237.2 thousand (Fig. 3). Commercial red snapper fishing created 3.8 jobs and generated labor income amounting to $95.8 thousand in Mississippi.  

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