While exploring Edisto Island State Park in South Carolina with my daughters last week, we roamed onto the fishing pier behind the Edisto Environmental Learning Center.
The pier stretches past the marsh to provide good fishing access to Big Bay Creek, a tidal creek that’s not far from the ocean. The pier is well maintained and provides nice public foot access to inside waters for fishing and crabbing. However, what impressed me the most on this particular pier was a cluster of signs.
I don’t normally give much thought to signs, beyond noting a rule about allowable area uses or maybe learning something about natural or human history where I’m standing.
These signs, which were actually a collection of stickers and laminated posters, were highly functional and contained exactly the information that the pier’s primary users would need the most.
Measuring Sticker
Right on top was a 37-inch fish-measuring ruler sticker printed by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Lined up with various inch marks were listings of species with minimum or maximum harvest lengths at that measurement. The smallest was a 5-inch minimum width for blue crabs; the largest, a 36-inch minimum size for cobia.
Below the ruler markings, the sticker listed creel limits for a popular species and a few other regulations notes and had a QR Code for full details. Importantly, the sticker also was clearly dated on top so it was easy to see those were the regulations for the current license year.
I suppose those stickers are made primarily to distribute in tackle shops for anglers to put on their boats, but hopefully they are also on public piers all along the SC coast. Modern fisheries management and regulations are vital, but undoubtedly challenging to keep up with for many anglers, so having the ruler and key information on one handy sticker is very helpful.
Useful Posters
Beneath the sticker were three fish ID posters: two covered all of South Carolina’s popular marine sport fish species, inshore and offshore, and one was specific to the species most apt to be caught from that specific pier.
Educational posters also include one showing five very common bait animals (shrimp, mud minnows, fiddler crabs, mullet and squid) and best uses for each; one detailing a useful knot; and one about best practices for handling fish that will be released.
Finally, two posters highlight regulations for redfish and blue crabs, which are certainly among the most popular species to pursue from that pier.
Great work by the folks who chose the information to highlight on that pier!
