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By RICK KELLEY
Drafting
The deep freeze a month ago killed an estimated 3.8 million fish in Texas coastal waters, the fourth largest climate-related fish death on the Gulf Coast. since 1983. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPDWD) surveyed coastal waters for fish dead, identifying 61 different species and on Wednesday released its estimate The Lower Laguna Madre, TPWD officials said, was particularly affected.
“Non-recreational species contributed 91 percent of the total mortality in number of fish,” TPWD said in a statement. “This includes species such as silver perch, flathead catfish, pinfish, cove anchovy and mullet.”
“While most fishermen do not look for them, the fish that do not are game are ecologically important as they provide food for the largest game fish and increase the overall diversity of Texas bays, ”the statement read.
“Game species of recreational importance accounted for the other 9 percent of the total. Of that 9 percent, the dominant species included spotted sea trout (48 percent), black drum (31 percent), sea bream (8 percent), sandpiper (7 percent), red drum (3 percent). percent), gray snapper (2 percent) and red snapper (less than 1 percent)”. The TPWD went on to say that the Lower Laguna Madre had the highest mortality of spotted sea trout with an estimated kill of 104,000 fish.
IN WATER
“I’ve been fishing once since the frost,” South Padre Island fishing guide Capt Grady John Deaton said Thursday. “I didn’t see many dead fish and I saw a dead turtle, but we only caught one fish. It was a big red corvinar and large. “We don’t catch any trout,” he added. “A friend of mine went out yesterday and He said they had five fish and that only one of the five trout was big enough to keep. Fishing is difficult ”.
Another island fishing guide, Capt Craig Woolly, said he has not personally seen much evidence of high fish mortality, but he has seen airborne footage and heard anecdotal reports of major fish kills in the region.
“The Paradise team (beach condos) removed 142,000 pounds of dead mullet, and I’ve seen drone footage from both sides of the Arroyo Colorado in the north, where it looked devastating to me,” Woolly said Thursday. “I have friends of mine who fish in Port Mansfield and in certain areas up there they’ve seen a lot of dead spotted trout, some croaker and a lot of dead black drums. The theme of the dead black drum surprised me more than anything ”.
Woolly said an acquaintance of hers is a commercial fisherman specializing in black drum who sells to local restaurants.
“I saw him on the dock, I guess early last week, and I asked him, ‘Have you been to the gas wells?’ Dunkin House or Cullen House, if you are familiar with the bay system. ”Woolly said. “That’s about 15 miles north of South Padre Island. And his quote was ‘millions’ “.
MEMORABLE FACT
Previously, the major cold weather fish kills occurred in December 1983, with an estimated 14.4 million fish killed along the entire Texas coast; in February 1989, which killed 11.3 million fish between eastern Matagorda Bay and the Lower Laguna Madre; and in December 1989, an estimated 6.2 million fish. “I’m 60 years old, so I’m old enough to remember the frosts of ’83 and ’89, and at that time I was living in the Corpus Christi area,” Woolly said. “After the ’89 freeze, it probably took about four to six years for fishing to go back to the way it was before the freeze, and I’d dare say Parks and Wildlife is going to cut regulations accordingly. big.” “I have heard rumors of capture and release for only a year or two, I heard rumors that it they will reduce to a trout, a red croaker, a sole as daily limits per bag ”, he added.
The current daily limits are five for trout and sole and three for red croaker.
RE-EVALUATE A RESOURCE
The first indication of a fish kill in winter is small fish, mullets, pinfish, sand trout, sea urchin fish and other species of bait fish, which float to the surface.
The fish more Large, sought after by fishermen, including red and black drum, spotted sea trout and snook, initially sink to the bottom and it takes a few days or a week or two for the scope of their collective destiny to become visible .
Woolly said that if fishing is negatively affected for a few years, it should be a wake-up call for athletes to reconsider how they use the coastal fishing resource.
“I hope that, in the future, from here on, some people get a rude slap, “he said. “… Once they come out, and they have been there two or three times, and they are not going to catch a fish or a fish is going to bite.”
“They’re going to start thinking, hopefully they will, maybe we need to be a little better stewards than what we have here, instead of having some kind of ego image with 25 trout and 12 red trout and six black drums hanging on nails somewhere boat ramp somewhere, ”Woolly said.
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