real sad! we lost alot of fish in florida.

Prolonged cold weather freezes Florida fish
Outdoors

print page | send as email | email editor

Giant dead snook were gathered by these East Coast anglers after the Florida Wildlife Commission issued an emergency rule allowing people to collect dead fish for proper disposal after the severe January freeze. Fish could not be bought, sold or consumed. PHOTO COURTESY BILL SARGENT

View our entire photo gallery >>

By Paul Bruun, Jackson Hole, Wyo.
January 20, 2010


Sports fans chortle that records are made to be broken. If this is true, the state of Florida is headed for the record books in a bad way. Winter cold snaps aren’t uncommon in the Sunshine State. But three weeks of record below-normal temperatures punished more than Florida’s tourists, truck farms, fruit and citrus industry.

Fish kills are not uncommon during these winter freezes. Several weeks ago photos and messages began arriving about this paralyzing cold front. A lengthy deep freeze aided by northeast winds plunged both fresh and saltwater temperatures to lows that most subtropical fish species cannot survive. Over the weekend and this week the watery graves bulging with thousands of dead fish topped the news.

The recent record cold is reminiscent of earlier deep freezes in 1977 and 1989 that took a great toll on Florida’s fish resources. But experts say these savage mercury plunges since January 1 will prove to be worse ... much worse. Gamefish, tropicals, exotic non-natives, turtles and manatees were not spared.

By executive order the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission moved immediately to close the snook season statewide (due to open February 1) at least until September 1 as well as any harvesting of bonefish and tarpon until April 1.

Snook, a highly sought after inshore gamefish and table delicacy is popular with sportsmen throughout the tropics. The snook is related to other international battlers such as the nile perch and barramundi. All are very susceptible to sudden downward temperature changes.

The four subspecies of snook found in Florida – common, the fat, tarpon and swordspine – cannot survive in water temperatures lower than 45 degrees. According to Miami Herald Outdoors writer Susan Cocking, NOAA weather Web site listed water temperatures at various testing stations in Florida Bay in the 40’s. Tampa Tribune outdoor reporter Frank Sargeant who has written books on the state’s favorite inshore sportfish including “The Snook Book,” reported that Tampa Bay area temperature was 41 degrees in many canals that previously provided cold refuges for snook in other seasons.

As temps plummet, fish float

On Florida’s central East Coast, the Indian River and Mosquito Lagoon system, which features mostly shallow water, presented anglers with dozens of large sea trout floating dead on the flats. Near the Indian River-adjacent Central Florida community of Palm Bay, several anglers were visiting a favorite small creek at the tail end of the frigid weather when they found their quarry – snook and baby tarpon – all belly up! They photographed a dead 30-pound snook and then returned it to the water. People rarely encounter 30-pound snook alive or dead and Florida Marine Patrol officers in the Melbourne-Sebastian area of the Indian River ticketed anglers for snatching dead snook from waterways during this normally closed season.

The 2010 Florida Freeze has provided a variety of interesting results, only one of them pleasant. Because Florida has been without a serious aquatic freeze for over a dozen years, the snook population has expanded and pushed northward on both coasts to areas traditionally beyond the species’ range. The frigid thinning of this northern fringe population is usually predictable. But the magnitude of this slaughter covering the Everglades, Tampa and Florida Bay as well as Pine Island Sound and Indian River slaughter is uncommon.

Even the subtropical Florida Keys region usually bathed by daily water exchanges between the Gulf of Mexico via Florida Bay and the Atlantic with the nearby Gulf Stream wasn’t off limits to the killer freeze. Bonefish, baitfish, puffers, mangrove snapper, mullet, ballyhoo, ladyfish, jack crevalle, thousands of catfish and even spotted sea trout were victims. Tarpon on both coasts were not immune to the sudden temperature plunge.

Noted Florida angling personality Flip Pallot ventured south from his Mosquito Lagoon home at Mims to the Keys and had this to say: “It’s the same at Flamingo (Everglades National Park southern terminus) ... tons of dead bonefish at Islamorada this week while I was down for the Sailfly Tourney. Mutton snapper floating up on the reef and dead mangrove snapper in all the basins around town. Pinfish, blowfish, trunkfish, porgies, grunts and just about everything that was shallow and couldn’t find deep water got crushed. Closures might actually be a good thing at this point ... doesn’t mean we can’t fish!”

The Miami Herald contacted Dr. Jerry Ault, professor of marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine Science. Ault reported surprise at the high number of tarpon and bonefish killed this past week. During one afternoon Ault’s research assistant Mike Larkin picked up more than 160 bonefish from the Upper Keys portion of Florida bay. A Stuart fishing guide delivered the scientists a “truckload” of dead tarpon measuring from three to four-and-a-half feet long found floating near the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant on the Indian River.

Stunned by the immediate fish mortality reports, Dr. Ault said, “It’s hard to get a grip on the number of mortalities, but the effects will be felt for years to come.”

Veteran Broward County (Ft. Lauderdale) native outdoor writer/fishing guide Steve Kantner wasn’t as quick to jump on the doomsday bandwagon, especially in the snook department. Steve feels that despite the super cold, some good snook always manage to survive, especially the larger ones that move offshore for a period before returning to the passes and deepwater channel cuts to spawn during May and June. “Meanwhile, water temps in the surf plummeted to 57 degrees, driving pompano, mackerel and bluefish southward in unprecedented numbers,” he reports.

What are the effects?

According to veteran Florida Today outdoor writer Bill Sargent it is sad that the growing butterfly peacock bass program begun by long time Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Department biologist Paul Shafland and concentrated in South Florida’s deepest freshwater canals may have suffered dramatically from the cold. Ironically, Shafland retired recently. On the brighter side, however, many other unwanted invasive exotics such as tilapia, oscars, snakeheads, armored catfish and Mayan cichlids might have been frozen out of their new canal homes. So far there are no reports of largemouth bass fish kills other than small pockets of yearling fish.

During this challenging economic period, this blow to one of Florida’s richest biological attractions will prove enlightening to many armchair economists. The four-month (Feb. 1 to May 31) snook season on the Florida West Coast attracts thousands of anglers annually. Although excellent catch-and-release snook action continues well into June and July, destination communities such as Everglades City, Goodland, Pine Island and Matlache are empty after “the season.”

Long time Everglades City recreational and fly fishing guides Steve Huff and Joe McNichols have been saddened by the extensive fish kills they have encountered in recent days. They report creeks and bays of the 10,000 Islands are carpeted with everything from snook and tarpon to manatees, catfish, shark, sawfish, mullet and baitfish. Interestingly, Joe nor Steve have not noticed any dead redfish or its close relative, the black drum among the carnage. Redfish have always been known as the toughest species in marshes and backcountry locations where they thrive.

Redfish might just become the most popular Florida inshore target while other sportfish stocks begin the rebuilding process.

–––––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––– –––––––––

Paul Bruun writes weekly on his adventures and misadventures in the great outdoors


http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?ctg=8&csfd=1