-Funding for "Coastal Kingdom" is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, which proudly supports this program.

Through the generosity of our members and donors, the ETV Endowment has funded educational and entertaining programming like "Coastal Kingdom" for more than 40 years.

♪♪ -So, when you think of the Low Country, you think about certain types of animals.

And I think one of the species is right here.

In this episode, we're going to look at signature species, animals that live right here in the Low Country.

♪♪ ♪♪ So, look at that little guy.

Okay, we got something big on.

There we go.

We've got the bird.

And there's already a chick in there.

♪♪ ♪♪ So, there's some stuff in here and some of this stuff we want to get right back in.

Man, I love cast nets.

You can catch so many neat things in them.

First thing I'm going to do is get my hands wet before I handle this beautiful little trout.

So this is a spotted sea trout, and I'm going to get it right back in.

And then I'm going to get rid of some of these mullet.

Lots of mullet.

So they're all going back in.

I'm actually after something else.

And I'll put them in the tank.

And here's the stuff I was after.

These guys right here.

And these are white shrimp.

These are wonderful animals.

They are so neat.

And the first thing I do to tell is that they have antennae that are twice the length of the body.

It also has a very long and narrow rostrum, which is this sort of pointed thing on the head right here.

And then the tips of the tail -- the telson or the tail is a slightly different color too.

Now, these guys are good jumpers.

Whoa!

There goes one right there.

Let me grab it and pop it back in.

You know, and it's interesting.

That's one of the ways that shrimp get away from things.

They have the ability to take that tail and fire it backwards underneath them, and it propels them sometimes all the way out of the water and very quickly out of danger.

Now, a couple of quick things about shrimp is one, they have swimming legs and you can see those in the back.

And then they also have walking legs.

Now, these are decapods.

So they're the relatives of lobsters and crabs and things like that.

But they have 10 legs.

You know, a lot of people look at shrimp and they just look at them as something to eat, and they are delicious.

In fact, not only do people eat shrimp, just about any animal will eat shrimp as well.

And so that's a disadvantage for a shrimp because they need to stay away from a lot of different predators.

But they've got some pretty good techniques for doing it.

That rostrum, that horn, the ability to fire the tail backwards, propel themselves even out of the water.

They're pretty good swimmers, but there's a lot out there trying to get them, for sure.

And one of the first things they have to do is get as big as possible, because when they're really small, when they're in the larval stage, they're -- everybody eats them, including even little tiny fish.

Now, what's interesting about shrimp is typically these animals, if they live long enough, will move offshore, they'll spawn and they lay eggs, and they lay like half a million eggs or more.

Those eggs will kind of trickle down to the bottom and then hatch within just a day or so.

They hatch into little larvae, planktonic larvae.

And those larvae just kind of float around in the currents.

And eventually after going through lots of molds, they want to move inshore into the creeks.

When the tide is coming out, they sit on the bottom and kind of hide in the mud.

And when the tide goes in, they get up in the water column and they ride the tide in.

And other invertebrates do this as well.

And then once the tide changes, they go back down and they wait again, and eventually they get into the creeks where they can start their lives as kind of regular shrimp.

Al-- You know, although they're quite a bit smaller.

And then when they get big like this, if they survive, they will move back offshore and start the whole process again.

So a lot of things want to eat these guys, but they kind of have a secret weapon.

They have this grass right back here, spartina grass, and it's a great place to hide if you're a shrimp.

There they all go back in.

♪♪ You guys know me.

I'm more of an animal guy.

But when you start talking about the salt marsh, you got to start with a plant.

And if you look behind me, all you see is green.

And that's one plant species, that spartina grass.

It is the only plant that can live in full-strength ocean water here in South Carolina.

And if you look in here, look how tall this spartina is.

So we're late in the season.

In fact, this is blooming.

One of my good friends always says when the spartina blooms, the shrimp are ready, which is something that I've kind of gone by, but...

So what can spartina do that other plants can't?

Well, it can desalinate the water.

So in other words, it can pull the water out of the salt water, get rid of the salt crystals and survive in an environment like this.

In fact, a lot of times... Yeah, it tastes salty.

So what they're doing is getting rid of the salt crystals and extruding them through the leaves, through pores in the leaves.

The other thing is this is a really harsh environment.

Remember, it's completely inundated with water part of the time and it's completely dry part of the time.

So this plant can handle that no problem.

Now, one of the most important things about the salt marsh and spartina grass is that it's really good protection for lots of animals.

So things like shrimp and crabs and little tarpon and little grouper, all kinds of sport fish that we see offshore, they grow up in the salt marsh.

And so when this is flooded, those animals come out, exploit some of the resources in the marsh here.

And then when the tide goes back out, they kind of follow it back out into the creeks.

Eventually those animals get big enough where they can go offshore and live in the open ocean.

So remember, spartina turns green every year.

It produces a wonderful crop like this.

But then it's -- in the fall, it starts to turn kind of golden color.

Eventually it turns brown and it breaks off, you know, during storms and tides and things like that.

And that broken off spartina, called wrack, just kind of floats in and out with the tide.

It's broken down by plants and animals, and eventually it turns into the energy that powers this Atlantic food chain.

Now, it's pretty mucky here.

The pluff mud is pretty mucky here, but I want to go a little bit further in and see if we can get some deeper mud and some taller spartina.

Man, it's getting really sticky in here.

And this is low tide, so this would be completely -- I'd be up to my chest in water normally, but at low tide of course most of the tide is out.

[ Mud squelches ] [ Laughs ] So, this is getting to be kind of difficult.

I'm -- I'm going to stop here because I'm slowly sinking.

And one of the things I've learned about pluff mud, the longer you stand in one place, the more you sing slowly, but you're still sinking.

So... And what I found is once you get up to about knee level, you're not getting out easily, and all vanity aside, you kind of just have to lie down in the pluff mud and roll out before it gets really deep.

I'm going to head back the other way.

So, pluff mud is full of decomposing matter.

I'm trying to not step in my footsteps, so I don't go any further.

But it is really, really very much like what I would think quicksand would be.

But mostly it's decaying organic material -- old spartina plants, dead animals, things like that.

There's a lot of animals that live in the marsh here as well.

We said there's really only one species of vascular plant, but just glancing right here, I right away see some periwinkle snails.

And so that's a snail that is -- you often find on spartina grass.

Now, what's interesting is it's feeding on stuff that grows on the spartina.

And these snails, these periwinkle snails actually create grooves, sort of linear grooves on the leaves.

And those grooves begin to develop some fungus from the damage that the snail creates.

And they're basically farming fungus that they can then feed on.

So the marsh isn't all the same.

You can see the spartina grass is pretty, pretty short here.

But look right here.

There's a clump of spartina that's actually blooming.

And if I look down in here, there is...

There are ribbed mussels here, a whole clump of ribbed mussels.

And what's happening is these ribbed mussels are giving off waste, and that waste is kind of fertilizing the plant, basically.

So you can find these little clumps.

And in these clumps, there's always some really cool animals.

So let's look around here and see what we can find.

First thing I see is the ribbed mussel itself.

And here's one that's dead.

I don't want to pull a live one out, but this is an incredible animal.

First of all, it can take being really hot or really cold.

It can take being completely covered with water.

It can take being very, very dry.

And it's usually held in place by these byssal threads.

And these are threads that kind of stick to other ribbed mussels or spartina stalks or something like that.

And it holds the animal in the mud.

This is a filter feeder.

And so what it likes is a spot where the tide comes in, and it can kind of pull some stuff out of the incoming tide and then close up when it doesn't need to be filtering.

One of the things that you often find in these -- and there's a hole right here -- and let me pull this out and here it is.

It's going to get some mud all over it.

But this is a mud crab.

And this is one I think called uridium.

And sometimes if they're recent molts, they're cobalt blue and orange.

This one still has some pretty good orange on it.

But look at the build on that crab.

So this is a sort of chunky, muscular crab.

And this is an animal that feeds on, among other things, those periwinkle snails.

But it needs structure.

So what it lives in is these clumps of mussels.

It's a good place to hide.

There's holes all around it, and it can get down to the water table if it needs to and protect itself.

Boy, that's a -- that's a pretty little crab for sure.

So, lots of fiddler crabs in here.

And these appear to be... Yeah, they are one that's called sand fiddlers.

And boy, this is a really pretty one.

And sand fiddlers are sometimes called Chinabacks because their back looks kind of porcelain, really, really common.

And they tend to like areas like this where it's a little bit sandier.

This of course is a male.

Females have two small claws.

Males, of course, have that one big claw that's characteristic of fiddler, where the fiddler crab gets its name.

Okay, here's another species.

And this is a much bigger fiddler crab.

Wow!

Look at that.

So this is the biggest fiddler crab we have.

This is called the red-jointed fiddler.

And that's definitely a male, one big, big claw.

And they get the name because if you look kind of on the joints of the claw you can see red spots.

But these are usually associated with a little bit of sort of rain water or fresh water running into the marsh.

Boy, that's a good-size fiddler.

So, here's some of that wrack we were talking about, W-R-A-C-K.

Boy, there's a bunch of it here.

So this is previous generations of spartina.

So after this stuff dies, it washes in and out with the tide.

It's broken down by all kinds of things, and it provides the energy that powers the entire Atlantic food chain.

So we're out to catch one of the most iconic animals in the Low Country, the blue crab.

And this is perfect habitat.

They love the marsh.

They love structure like around docks like this.

There are a lot of ways to catch crabs, and one of the really easy ways to do it is to set a crab pot, which is just a trap that crabs go into.

But my favorite way to do it is with a handline like this.

So what you can do is this is a neat contraption.

It's got a weight on it.

It also has this hook on it.

And so what you can do is put a piece of chicken on it like a chicken neck, and use a handline and throw this out, and then hold on to the string and just wait for a bite.

Now, I already have a couple of lines out, so hopefully we're going to catch a crab.

Okay, I feel something on this.

I'm not 100% sure, so I'm going to get my net ready.

And the trick to this is just being very, very careful about how fast you pull in the string.

Because if the crab feels you're pulling, it might let go.

And then when it gets close, you just scoop underneath it like that.

And that's how you catch a crab.

And this is a good one.

This is a big male.

So this is a Jimmy.

And I can tell -- Let's get this one out and have a good look at it.

There we go.

So this, like I said, is a male.

And I can tell for a couple of ways.

One is the apron is really narrow right here.

On a female, it would be much, much wider.

Also the wonderful blue on the claws.

And females would have kind of reddish orange claw tips.

So that's another diagnostic.

Now, this one, if we're keeping blue crabs, this one would be big enough to keep because it has to be five inches from this spine to this spine right here.

You know, you look at a blue crab and it is really the perfect organism to live here.

Unless it's recently molted, it has a very hard shell.

And look at the spines on it.

I mean, there's spines here.

There's spines on the tips, spines on the claws.

And let's talk about the claws.

I mean, this animal could pinch you really, really hard and break the skin and actually do a lot of damage.

Now, typically blue crabs have one claw that's better for sort of smaller things, picking up small things, and then one that's better for crushing.

They're swimming crabs.

And they've got these wonderful paddles that allow them to swim real well in the marsh.

But you see these in sometimes in 40, 50 feet of water swimming up on the surface.

So they're very adept swimmers.

I'll never forget one day I was in the salt marsh and just looking up on the bank, watching some fiddler crabs that were just walking down towards the water, and a blue crab about this size came rushing out of the water, grabbed a couple claw fulls of fiddler crabs and slid back into the water with them.

I mean, unbelievable predator.

It was kind of terrifying, actually.

But, you know, they've got to eat and they eat just about anything they can catch.

Alright, well, I'm going to let this guy go and get those lines in.

Oh, by the way, I do not recommend this one-handed.

I just about got pinched.

You probably want to keep two hands on the crab when you're releasing it.

In fact, I think I will.

And here he goes.

One of my favorite things about the salt marsh is the incredible diversity of life that's here, especially fish species.

Now, we're in for a real treat.

We've got Kai Williams here today, and he's agreed to take us out to look at some fish.

-Absolutely.

Looking forward to it.

Looks like a great start.

-Sounds good.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Hey, guys, here is -- Sorry about that, Kai.

I didn't mean to throw it in your lap.

So, guys, here's a ladyfish.

This is the family Elopidae.

But you can see how athletic this fish is.

Anyway, it's a good start.

So, we've had a bit of a rain delay.

But Kai's got us in a good spot, and we're going to get some lines in the water and see what happens.

Oh, there's something on there still.

Well, there we go.

Just realized it's getting close to the boat, I think.

There we go.

So, beautiful fish.

We're not going to keep it out of the water long.

Looks like a finetooth, but we want to get this hook out.

-So we're going to do the through and through on this one.

What you do is you try to grab behind the barb.

And then cut it off?

-And then I cut it right here and it slides out much better than bringing the barb back.

-That's -- I think that's really good.

Okay.

I'm going to go ahead and put this one back in, make sure it's fine and revived.

And there it goes.

So, while we're waiting on a bite, what got you started doing this?

First of all, how long have you been doing it?

-I've been a captain for about 17 years now.

I started fishing at a very early age when I was a little kid, maybe two years old.

I used to ride on my -- on the windsurfer with my dad, and he would troll for bluefish with a planer off of his windsurfer.

I was just, like, fishing every day, being outdoors, not working indoors.

It's been great for me so far.

-I'll tell you what.

I know from just fishing with friends and stuff, it's a fair amount of work though, isn't it?

-Yes, sir.

-And you're still doing it and still loving it?

-Absolutely.

♪♪ -Hmm.

You know, it did have kind of a black line down the middle.

That is not a shark.

That is a cobia.

That's a nice fish.

Look at that.

There we go.

Good job, Kai.

-Nice work.

-It's -- Oh, it came right out.

Beautiful.

-I tell you, these things are so neat because of those -- Retractable spikes are my favorite part.

-Unbelievable.

Look at these spikes.

I'm not even going to touch them because they can pop up.

This is a really special fish.

We're not going to keep it out of the water very long.

But we have a pretty good cobia fishery here.

But this is one we want to really protect.

And this is -- Even if we wanted to keep it, it's too small.

-That's right, that's right.

-I think 36?

-36 to the fork of the tail.

-Looks like they're good.

Good deal.

-I guess that one was ready to go, Tony.

-Yeah.

-Nice job.

-Yeah, it was wonderful.

♪♪ Okay, so I've got something really small on.

I thought I was hung for a minute, but it's a little tight for sure.

I feel it.

I know what it is.

Yep.

Sure enough.

So this is an oyster toadfish, a really interesting little fish.

The first thing you notice about it is how cryptic it is.

Great cryptic coloration.

You know, it would do well on the bottom.

In fact, you can tell it's not a fish that spends a lot of time in the water column.

It's going to be kind of standing down near the bottom.

Wicked spines right here.

If you get stuck with those, it really hurts.

So I'm being careful of that.

Interesting little fish.

They get about, you know, about this big or so.

Hear the vocalizations?

[ Fish grunting ] So, so many of these fish vocalize, which makes sense.

If you live in sort of turbid water, vocalization may really be an advantage for them.

There he goes.

♪♪ Guys, if you look over my shoulder, there's a group of bottlenose dolphins right here.

People have a tendency to want to call them porpoises, but the only thing we have here is bottlenose dolphins.

And they're kind of all around us.

Looks like they're -- It looks like they're probably chasing some mullet or some other fish.

♪♪ A lot of times you see these guys out in the creeks and rivers, but they love the salt marsh because they can get way up into the marsh and catch all sorts of fish and other crabs and all kinds of things.

♪♪ -I think we got ourselves a nice jack.

-Oh, awesome.

Boy, they got a lot of fight for their size.

Beautiful.

God, they are fantastic.

-I love these guys.

-Good job, Kai.

This is fantastic.

Man, what an incredible fish.

Yeah, I think this is a crevalle jack.

And -- [ Fish bloops ] Boy, did you hear that?

-Sounds great.

-I didn't know they vocalized.

I guess I didn't realize that.

Boy, beautiful yellow tail.

This is one of those fast-beat tails.

This is a terrific fish, fast-moving and a major, major predator.

We're going to get it right back in as quick as we can.

But, wow, that's a very different fish shape than a lot of the others that we've seen, that's for sure.

Kai, can I do the honors and let this one go even though you caught it?

-Absolutely.

-Okay, well, here it goes.

Looks like it's in really good shape.

Make sure it's good and revived.

Oh, that was perfect.

♪♪ ♪♪ Yeah, it feels like there's some-- Oh, yeah.

So this feels good.

And I think it's off.

So that was just a teaser.

But there is definitely something on there for a second.

Yep.

Took our bait.

♪♪ You can hear it pulling some drag out.

So, Kai, what's your prediction?

-I think you've got a bull red.

-I hope so.

I love big redfish.

Boy, I can -- I can feel some kind of bulldog shakes, you know, not not like a shark, but like... -That's the telltale sign is those big head shakes.

-Oh, I just saw what looked like a little bit of kind of a pinkish color.

Oh, wow!

-[ Whistles ] -This is a nice fish.

-Oh, perfect hook job, Tony.

-Those circle hooks really make this -- make this where you don't gut-hook fish.

I just love that.

So, Kai, is this typical size for this -- for this time of year?

-You know, I'll bet that one's a male.

The females get even larger than that.

-So do you think it's an advantage to keep these fish in the water?

-Absolutely.

-Yeah.

I mean, it really probably is the least amount of stress is if you keep them in the water.

-Absolutely.

-One of the things I love about these is so, these grow up in the marsh and then eventually move out into deeper water, don't they?

-Yes, sir.

-So a couple of things to notice about redfish and a lot of fish for that matter.

They're very dark on top and then they're light on the bottom.

And that's countershading.

It makes sense.

Right?

So a predator that kind of sees it from above, it's going to blend in with the bottom.

And if something swims underneath it, it's going to blend in with the sky.

So countershading is a really good way for fish to protect themselves.

The other thing is this spot and red drum or redfish have that wonderful spot on the tail.

Sometimes they have lots of spots, but that may fool predators.

I mean, we don't know for sure, but maybe that deflects bites from predators and instead of getting bit in the head, you might get bit in the tail.

No bite's good, but better the tail than the head, that's for sure.

So time to let this one go, huh?

-Yes, sir.

Here we go.

-Looks like it's in good shape.

-Absolutely.

-Getting healthy.

Boy, that circle hook just popped right out.

-Oh, yeah.

-There we go.

There we go.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Wow, look at the size of that.

That's a beautiful fish.

Boy, that's a large male right there.

You can hear that one drumming from here.

-So like Kai was saying, you can hear that drumming and that's sonic muscles, and they use this for courtship.

So they use this to find females basically.

They can drum.

Keep in mind we're in an area where the water isn't always very clear.

So if it's cloudy, one of the ways to find a mate is to drum and make those noises.

And that way another fish can find you.

Oh, that's great.

-That one swum off great.

Yep.

-You know, Kai, I appreciate how conservation-minded you are with these fish.

-Yes, sir.

-I mean, keep it in the water as much as you can and just things to make sure that that fish is going to be just fine.

-Absolutely.

They're pretty important to us, so the better we can keep their health, the better -- the more we can catch in the future.

-And I also appreciate you letting us tag along with you today.

This has been an amazing day, -Been a blast.

-Seen a lot of fish and a lot of cool things.

-Been a blast.

Appreciate you coming.

-When you spend time in the salt marsh, you begin to realize just how important this habitat is.

It's great protection against storm surge and erosion.

It's a place for small animals to grow up until they're ready to move out into deeper water.

In fact, 70% of our coastal fish species rely on the salt marsh for part of their life cycle.

This really is a nursery for the ocean.

Thanks for joining us on "Coastal Kingdom."

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Funding for "Coastal Kingdom" is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, which proudly supports this program.

Through the generosity of our members and donors, the ETV Endowment has funded educational and entertaining programming like "Coastal Kingdom" for more than 40 years.