Fish kill minimal along coast
Anglers and Texas Parks and Wildlife officials along the Texas coast are breathing easier this week after a massive cold front Thursday and Friday seemed to have spared many fish along the bays and Intracoastal Waterway.
Robin Riechers, TPWD Coastal Fisheries Division spokesman, characterized the weekend as “dodging a bullet.”
“That may not be what I’m saying Wednesday (after a flyover), but we are still counting dead game fish in the hundreds, which is amazing considering the cold,” he said. “The most notable kills occurred with pinfish, mullet and hardheads.”
Low tides the previous week and already-cold water help save a lot of fish killed because many of them had already moved to deeper water before the freeze hit.
“In past big events, the cold weather came on quick,” Riechers sad. “Having cold weather before the front, the fish were acclimated already. A lot of water was already shoved out of the bays (because of the low tides) and the barge traffic stoppage helped a lot.”
According to a TPWD memo, “many of the fish seen have been along the shoreline and are small (less than 6-10 inches in length). This weekend, additional fish species have been seen, but in low numbers. During field reconnaissance, the water clarity remains high and many fish were seen in canals beginning to come off the bottom (with their tails on the bottom and head in the water column). With the higher water temperatures, many of the dead fish in the deeper water are beginning to float.”
Mid-coast captain Scott Sommerlatte said he flew over the middle bays Sunday and counted several hundred dead trout, but called the fish kill “insignificant.”
“I think we escaped anything too terrible,” he said. “I saw a couple of really big trout, but not a single redfish. East Matagorda had most of the dead fish, but this wasn’t as bad as last year — not even close.”
A small snook kill was reported in the Lower Laguna Madre, but Capt. Eric Glass guided a redfish client Sunday along the southernmost tip of the coast and reported a great day of fly-fishing on the flats.
