*Information from New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection*
Size
Maximum 70 cm; common to 40 cm.
Habitat, biology, and fisheries
Found usually in river estuaries and shallow coastal marinewaters over sand bottoms, often associated with seagrass beds (as nursery for young); also in salt marshes and tidal pools of high salinity. Feeds mainly on crustaceans and fishes. Caught mainly with pound nets, gill nets, seines, and occasionally with bottom trawls; also by anglers who sometimes land 3 times the commercial catch on west coast of Florida. Marketed mostly fresh; a highly esteemed foodfish. Florida landing has reduced from 600 t (1980) to less than 100 t. (1995). The rapid decline of commercial catch in the last 2 decades is alarming. There is also a shift of the fishery to recreational fishing.
Distribution
Atlantic coast from Long Island to Florida and Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Laguna Madre, Mexico.
