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Fishery Bulletin 101(2) 



ary with much less spawning activity in March and April 

 (Fig. IIB). Both groups of striped mullet had peak spawn- 

 ing in December. The distribution of birthdates from fish 

 in the juvenile aging study indicated a more protracted 

 spawning season. A few individuals had birthdates outside 

 the October-April time period, but the percentage of these 

 fish was extremely low and within the margin of error for 

 the back-calculated birthdates. 



There was no significant difference in the mean size per 

 month of juveniles captured at different salinity regimes 

 (P=0.05) (Fig. 12). The initial growth rates for fish in all sa- 

 linity regimes were very similar and fairly fiat from Janu- 

 ary through April, and the mean size was still less than 40 

 mm. Growth increased noticeably in May and continued at 

 a higher rate through the end of the year. 



Discussion 



Recruitment 



The backcalculated birthdates from the juvenile aging 

 study indicated that the spawning season extended from 

 October to April. The earliest recruitment for fish in the 

 rotenone surveys occurred in November and in December 

 for the juvenile aging study. However, these were not stan- 

 dard samples and the early recruits represented a very 

 small percentage of the young-of-the-year. Given that the 

 youngest fish in the juvenile aging study were the most 

 recent recruits, this was direct evidence that fish spawned 

 in October were recruiting to South Carolina estuaries as 

 early as November. Other studies have also found early 



recruits occurring prior to January in other estuaries from 

 South Carolina (Cain and Dean, 1976), North Carolina 

 (Heftier et al., 1997), Georgia (Anderson, 1958; Rogers et al, 

 1984), and Florida ( Kilby 1949). One of the earliest reported 

 occurrences of young-of-the-year striped mullet was 19 

 November (Anderson, 1958) in Georgia. Offshore studies of 

 ichthyoplankton in the South Atlantic Bight have indicated 

 that the major spawning period occurs from December to 

 February (Anderson, 1958; Collins and Stender, 1989). The 

 smallest identifiable larvae caught in these studies were 

 in the 3-5 mm range, and according to our growth model 

 would have been approximately two to six days old. No stud- 

 ies to date have documented actual striped mullet spawning 

 areas in the South Atlantic Bight. However, there is some 

 evidence that striped mullet spawn near the edge of the 

 continental shelf (Collins and Stender, 1989). 



The peak abundances in our study for young-of-the-year 

 striped mullet in South Carolina (February to May) agreed 

 with available published data ( Jacot, 1920; Anderson, 1958; 

 McGovern and Wenner, 1990). In North Carolina, larval 

 abundance has been shown to be highest from January 

 through March and peaks in February (Hettler et al, 1997). 

 The lack of substantial change in length and weight of 

 striped mullet over the recruitment season suggested con- 

 tinued recruitment of new individuals from offshore (Het- 

 tler et al., 1997). Juveniles already recruited had dispersed 

 throughout the estuary and were not abundant in catches 

 afterwards. The recruitment of these juvenile striped mul- 

 let into North Carolina estuaries in pulses approximately 

 three to four weeks apart was possibly related to the lunar 

 cycle ( Hettler etal., 1997). This type of pulse of new recruits 

 into South Carolina was not seen in our study. In Georgia, 



