Appearance
Red drum are a dark red color on the back, which fades into white on the belly. The red drum have a characteristic eyespot near the tail and are somewhat streamlined. Three-year-old red drum typically weigh six to eight pounds. When they are near or over twenty-seven inches, they are called “bull reds”. The largest red drum on record weighed just over 94 pounds and was caught in 1984 on Hatteras Island. Red drum are relatives of the black drum and both make a croaking or drumming sound when distressed.The most distinguishing mark on the red drum is one large black spot on the upper part of the tail base. Having multiple spots is not uncommon for this fish but having no spots is extremely rare. As the fish with multiple spots grow older they seem to lose their excess spots. Scientists believe that the black spot near their tail helps fool predators into attacking the red drum's tail instead of their head, allowing the red drum to escape. The red drum uses its senses of sight and touch, and its downturned mouth, to locate forage on the bottom through vacuuming or biting. On the top and middle of the water column, it uses changes in the light that might look like food. In the summer and fall, adult red drum feed on crabs, shrimp, and mullet; in the spring and winter, adults primarily feed on menhaden, mullet, pinfish, sea robin, lizardfish, spot, Atlantic croaker, and mudminnows.
Distribution
Red drum naturally occur along the southern Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States, including the coasts of Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. Aquaculture activities involving Red Drum occur around the world. Immature red drum prefer grass marsh areas of bays and estuaries when available. Both younger mature red drum and bull red drum prefer rocky outcroppings including jetties and manmade structures, such as oil rigs and bridge posts. Around this type of structure, they are found throughout the water column.Reproduction
Mature red drum spawn in near shorelines from mid-August to mid-October. The red drum's eggs incubate for 24 hours. A female lays about 1.5 million eggs per batch. Scharf reported that in the first year, young red drum in Texas estuaries grew about 0.6 mm per day, though the rates varied with location and year and were higher in more southerly estuaries. After the first year they may be 271 – 383 mm long. About half of red drum are able to reproduce by age 4 years, when they are 660-700 mm long and 3.4 – 4 kg in weight. Red drum live to be 60 years old unless caught.⤷ Adults mature by 3 – 5 years of age; approximate length at maturity: males – 28 inches, females – 33 inches.
⤷ Spawn during late summer and fall. Spawning aggregations occur near estuary inlets and passes along barrier island beaches. Males produce drumming sounds using muscular contractions to vibrate the swimbladder, to attract females.
⤷ Larval red drum use vertical migrations to ride high salinity tidal currents into tidal creeks and shallow salt marsh nursery habitats.
As red drum grow longer, they increase in weight exponentially. The relationship between length and weight for nearly all species of fish can be expressed by an equation of the form:
⟶ W = aL^b\!\,
Invariably, b is close to 3.0 for all species, and a varies between species. Jenkins reported slightly different weight-length relationships for red drum caught in the spring and the fall off the western Gulf Coast of Louisiana:
⟶ Spring: W = 0.000005297L^{3.110}\!\,
⟶ Fall: W = 0.000015241L^{2.94}\!\,
where weight is in grams and length is total length measured in millimeters. For example, these relationships predict that a 600 mm red drum would weigh about 2300 grams . These relationships can be used more specifically to determine how healthy a sample of red drum are by comparing their actual weights to weights predicted by these relationships for the same length.
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