# Fish kills?



## Makofisherman (Aug 21, 2017)

I have seen some videos on cold weather fish kill around Port O'Conner area. Anyone have info on Galveston Bay area?


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## CaptTrojan (Apr 14, 2013)

Seabrook shoreline looks fine as of this morning!


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## BFI-TX (Nov 26, 2016)

I toured Bastrop Bayou,Bastrop Bay and the area backwaters, with a couple of friends, yesterday evening. I only saw a couple floating fish. We did find a dead sea turtle near 10 acre flats in Bastrop. I did notice a few dead mullet on the bottom of the cabal, behind the house. Im thinking it might take a while for thexdead fish to bloat and float. Hopibg for the best.


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## BayouBonsaiMan (Apr 14, 2009)

BFI-TX said:


> I toured Bastrop Bayou,Bastrop Bay and the area backwaters, with a couple of friends, yesterday evening. I only saw a couple floating fish. We did find a dead sea turtle near 10 acre flats in Bastrop. I did notice a few dead mullet on the bottom of the cabal, behind the house. Im thinking it might take a while for thexdead fish to bloat and float. Hopibg for the best.


Thanks for report!
Fingers crossed!


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## playinhooky (Dec 6, 2008)

Hearing encouraging reports From the Galveston bay complex, sounds better than down South. Leave them alone guys, let them warm up.


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## Stumpgrinder1 (Jul 18, 2016)

Im gonna go take a look around west bay today


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## txtan (Aug 12, 2013)

stumpgrinder3 said:


> Im gonna go take a look around west bay today


Keep us updated!


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## will-billy (Dec 23, 2018)

Theres a video from a capt Nick with big fish he found between Sargent and Chinquapin several over 30"

Capt Nick on snapchat


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## sniderr1974 (May 29, 2018)

We just need everyone to stay off the water the rest of this year, reduce the fishing pressure to allow the resource to rebound.

Iâ€™ll volunteer to randomly test the waters and take a few sample fish over the next 10 months and report back to the group!

Let me know if you all are in agreement 



P.s...For those without a sense of humor, I was JK!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Stumpgrinder1 (Jul 18, 2016)

Just put boat in water to look at west bay around bayou vista

A facebook post by Jimmy West said east bay came through well with minimal evidence of a bad fish kill


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## Jerrym (May 12, 2013)

Down on the West end of West Bay and do not see anything down here. The tide was very low this morning, but back to normal around 4pm. Dodge the bullet here.


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## Stumpgrinder1 (Jul 18, 2016)

txtan said:


> Keep us updated!


Ran out of highlands bayou, through jones lake, tiki channel ICW past n deer island, into harborwalk back down shoreline into highlands and saw zero dead fish . Stopped and looked numerous places shallow and saw no fish on bottom waiting to come up

water temps 44 - 48 degrees


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## playinhooky (Dec 6, 2008)

Made a trip to Baytown today on a plumbing run, stopped at Thompsons, to look, boat, leaving, said they saw no dead fish. Water was gin clear.


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## playinhooky (Dec 6, 2008)

I forgot to say, they ran up to Burnet bay and didn't catch any live ones either. Water temp was 41 at the ramp, and 46 in the channel at launch time was 45 at the ramp at 1330.


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## EastTexasRancher (Jun 21, 2019)

I ran all over west bay today. From the causeway to chocolate, north and south shorelines, Caranchua, Greens, and the intercostal. I didnâ€™t see a single dead fish. Water temp was 52. 

I hope we can get people to practice more catch and release this spring.


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## ilgin3 (Sep 28, 2020)

Ran around East Bay today, didn’t see any sign of a fish kill.


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## mccain (Oct 20, 2006)

i fished all over offats to the deer islands yesterday. no dead fish.....or live ones .....except a couple of mullet at the boat ramp and one or 2 jumping


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## 98aggie77566 (Jul 7, 2009)

Fished in the lights this morning on Bastrop.

Fish are back and healthy as ever...all small fish but happy to see they survived and seem to be back to normal.


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## sabiki (Aug 21, 2005)

98aggie77566 said:


> Fished in the lights this morning on Bastrop.
> 
> Fish are back and healthy as ever...all small fish but happy to see they survived and seem to be back to normal.


seems to be ok in matagorda... a few fish here and there.. i believe most fish 
had already retreated to deeper water. i fished couple of days just before the blizzard hit and bay didnt seem to be holding that many fish to begin with. only fish i ran into were pretty close to intercoastal. i have seen the video from pringle lake in POC- i can remember '89 same thing there -fish just seem like they dont leave when it gets cold..they just stay there and die for whatever reason.


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## pescador1 (Aug 12, 2005)

Lower laguna Madre had tremendous trout kills near Green Island. Shorelines were covered with dead trout and other species. My friend Xavier Longoria made a video yesterday showing entire shorelines covered with dead fish.


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## c hook (Jul 6, 2016)

*E. gorda and south*



pescador1 said:


> Lower laguna Madre had tremendous trout kills near Green Island. Shorelines were covered with dead trout and other species. My friend Xavier Longoria made a video yesterday showing entire shorelines covered with dead fish.


seems the shallow bays got hit hardest, with no deep water to hide in. Wonder how hard Baffin got hit?? :texasflag:texasflag


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## txtan (Aug 12, 2013)

Happy to hear Galveston is lookin up. Still praying for the rest of the coast.


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## mccain (Oct 20, 2006)

https://tpwd.texas.gov/newsmedia/releases/?req=20210223b


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## saltwatersensations (Aug 30, 2004)

mccain said:


> https://tpwd.texas.gov/newsmedia/releases/?req=20210223b


From the sounds of that report aside from some isolated hard hit areas we faired well in the grand scheme.


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## CC4628 (Aug 19, 2019)

Went out yesterday and launched at the Hitchcock diversionary canal ramp. There were several large (22"-25") trout floating and some smaller ones scattered around. Birds were eating the smaller fish so who knows how many they had already eaten. We did not see large numbers in the canal and saw none in west bay while running around.


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## Stevie_A (Feb 1, 2005)

Captains Greg Francis and Thomas Barlow have reported on what they have seen in WGB on facebook.


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## pescador1 (Aug 12, 2005)

From Arroyo to port Mansfield there are thousands of dead trout along all of the banks. My friends shot a video that was very sad. 95 percent of the dead fish were trout. Look at youtube for videos of the fish kills, they are terrible. TPWL suggests not fishing or catch and release for now.


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## Captain Marty (Jul 14, 2006)

*Sabine Lake*

Looks like Sabine Lake dodge the freeze bullet. I drove from SLR to Johnson Bayou without seeing one dead fish.


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## Sabinekid09 (Feb 28, 2017)

Captain Marty said:


> Looks like Sabine Lake dodge the freeze bullet. I drove from SLR to Johnson Bayou without seeing one dead fish.


Found 5 solid trout floating yesterday just south of Coffee ground. Plus a ton of pelicans on the North shoreline that I'm sure we're gorging on some more dead fish.


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## betterlate (Dec 7, 2012)

Caught trout in Pringle Lake last month, sad to see & hear this. I cringe anytime we get that cold weather as I still remember how bad & far-reaching the crippling '83 freeze was.

I've been wanting to learn Galveston Bay system with my newer boat & take shorter 1-day roundtrips. It looks like a good time to put the idea into action.


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## GnarwhalOutdoors (Nov 21, 2020)

LLM was hit hard. TPWD needs to close all trout fishing down there for the remainder of the year and all tournaments do catch and release only.

If not, all the **** croaker soakers will wipe it all out.


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## Rockfish2 (Sep 1, 2017)

pescador1 said:


> From Arroyo to port Mansfield there are thousands of dead trout along all of the banks. My friends shot a video that was very sad. 95 percent of the dead fish were trout. Look at youtube for videos of the fish kills, they are terrible. TPWL suggests not fishing or catch and release for now.


Where are they saying that?


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## paver (Mar 5, 2006)

*TP&W Fish Kill - Update 2/23/21*

TP&W - Fish kills in Carancahua Bay, [/B][/U][/B]East Matagorda Bay, Magnolia Beach, Matagorda Peninsula, southern shoreline of the GIWW to West Matagorda Bay, Turtle Bay, Port Oâ€™ Connor public beach and pier, canals at Sargent, Keller Bay, Lavaca Bay. Multiple species observed.

I saw and talked to TP&W at Keller Bay boat ramp after they conducted survey. The fish kill was small black drum and croaker. I walked shorelines and did not see dead reds or specks. Same for Port Lavaca harbor behind Wal-Mart, or Cape Carancahua Bay, Port Alto, Boca Chica areas.


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## WillieT (Aug 25, 2010)

I talked to a game warden yesterday in Pt Lavaca and asked her about the fish kill. She said it was not bad in our area but some other areas were hit hard, especially south.


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## M9 (Sep 21, 2004)

I fished in and around Christmas, Bastrop, and around Oyster Lake and did not see a single dead fish. Picked up a black drum and 2 reds but did not really fish that hard. Fingers crossed but it looks like this area will recover quick like it does every year after cold weather stops.


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## Mulletmaster (Mar 1, 2010)

Port Mansfield.


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## whaler76 (Aug 12, 2005)

Rockfish2 said:


> Where are they saying that?


A lot of information and photos/videos have been circulating on Facebook. A few good and honest resources to check are:
- Bite Me Group page
- Danny & Jeff Neu's pages
- Caleb McCumber's youtube channel

I'm kind of surprised there haven't been more photos and videos posted to 2cool....


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## cloudfishing (May 8, 2005)

GnarwhalOutdoors said:


> LLM was hit hard. TPWD needs to close all trout fishing down there for the remainder of the year and all tournaments do catch and release only.
> 
> If not, all the **** croaker soakers will wipe it all out.


Nice post ! that really sums it up ! We need more pro-active conservation type comments.


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## Captain Marty (Jul 14, 2006)

*91 Percent were nonrecreational fish*

3.8 million fish were killed by frigid weather

Last monthâ€™s winter freeze that led to fish kills across the Rio Grande Valley and all along the entire Texas coast caused the death of 3.8 million fish, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife.

This fish kill consisted of at least 61 species and 91 percent were nonrecreational species like silver perch, hardhead catfish, pinfish, bay anchovy and striped mullet. The other nine percent of the dead fish included: spotted seatrout, black drum, sheepshead, sand seatrout, red drum, gray snapper, and red snapper.

Parks and Wildlife said fish that canâ€™t make it to a refuge in deeper, more temperature-stable water during cold weather then die when water temperatures get too low.


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## SeaOx 230C (Aug 12, 2005)

Captain Marty said:


> 3.8 million fish were killed by frigid weather
> 
> Last monthâ€™s winter freeze that led to fish kills across the Rio Grande Valley and all along the entire Texas coast caused the death of 3.8 million fish, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife.
> 
> ...


So we don't need to close.everything down after all? Hmmm....that's good news right? I guess the internet videos don't really tell the whole story.


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## txtan (Aug 12, 2013)

SeaOx 230C said:


> So we don't need to close.everything down after all? Hmmm....that's good news right? I guess the internet videos don't really tell the whole story.


Finally someone said it. ðŸ'ðŸ»


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## c hook (Jul 6, 2016)

*reality check*

My take on it is, TP&W is not interested in quality fish, but quantities of fish. So if the bay is full of fish larvae, fry and 10 inch trout, TP&W says no worries. Just a different perspective. So no the population will not disappear under a freeze, but most of the quality fish will. :texasflag


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## Rubberback (Sep 9, 2008)

Freezes sux! sad_smiles


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