2013 South Carolina Code of Laws
Title 50 - Fish, Game and Watercraft
CHAPTER 13 - PROTECTION OF FISH
SECTION 50-13-650. Commercial trotlines.

(A) No more than four hundred hooks may be attached to a single commercially fished trotline. A trotline must not be attached to another trotline or to the support or float of another trotline. A trotline must not be longer than two thousand feet.

(B) April first to October first a trotline is not permitted in waters in this State one hour after official sunrise to one hour before official sunset unless the trotline is sunk to the bottom or to a minimum depth of four feet below the water surface. October second to March thirty-first trotlines may be left in the water twenty-four hours a day at any depth.

(C) A trotline must not be placed within one hundred feet of the mouth of a tributary stream.

(D) A trotline, cable, line, or any other device used for support may not extend more than halfway across a stream or body of water.

(E) A trotline or any part of it may not remain in the waters of this State more than twenty-four hours without inspection and removal of the fish taken on it.

(F) A trotline must not be placed within two hundred yards of a manmade structure on Lakes Marion and Moultrie nor placed in the Diversion Canal connecting Lakes Marion and Moultrie.

(G) Trotline hooks used in Lakes Marion and Moultrie and the upper reach of the Santee River must have a gap or clearance between point and shank no greater than seven-sixteenths inch.

(H) Stainless steel hooks must not be used on a trotline.

HISTORY: 1962 Code Section 28-616.1; 1967 (55) 342; 1981 Act No. 170, Section 1; 1992 Act No. 316, Section 6; 1993 Act No. 181, Section 1263; 2000 Act No. 245, Section 17; 1976 Code Section 50-13-1180; 2012 Act No. 114, Section 4, eff July 1, 2012.