re: Texas Fish Kill?

Pringle is a shallow back lake. As mentioned, it’s going to get nukes every time in cold weather.

As already discussed, the barge and shipping traffic is what will really ratchet this up. Those channels are pretty much the only deep water in some of these bay systems.

Saw video today of thousands of sea turtles that were rescued before they could drown and sounds like tens of thousands more sea turtles have died.

Limit is down to five, not sure what refulation changes will help.

There is going to be some pain felt without a doubt across the board, had a buddy send me a video today from Galveston where most think they escaped the worst. The video showed thousands of dead big fish (not bait fish) still on the bottom in the canals that have yet to float up, biologist I asked about that said they would start to come up today or tomorrow. A more stringent sized slot limit would be a tool they could use in effort to help speed the recovery, I doubt anything is done from Baffin northward but south of there I wouldn't be surprised if something wasn't changed with a 2 or 3 year sunset clause attached to it.

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Limit is down to five, not sure what refulation changes will help.

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Well changes were made,

Temporary trout regs for Laguna Madre systems:

Upon filing with the Secretary of State with the intended implementation date of April 1st, the action provides for the following:

Geographic area - Laguna Madre (Upper and Lower Laguna Madre bay systems) south of the JFK causeway, including the adjacent beachfronts from Packery Channel to the Rio Grande river

Species – Spotted Seatrout
Bag limit – 3 fish per day
Length restrictions – Slot limit of 17-23” Min. length 17” Max length 23”. No fish over 23” may be retained.

This management action would result in a 27% increase in spawning stock biomass with the purpose of accelerating recovery of the spotted seatrout fishery.
The emergency rule becomes effective once filed with the Sec. of state and is valid for up to 120 days. The emergency rule can be extended 1 time for 60 days, which leads to the possibility of having an emergency rule in place for 180 days. The rule can be pulled down at any time if the need for the emergency rule no longer exists.

The trout population in the Laguna Madre absolutely took a hit from the freeze.

Fished there two days pre freeze and caught about 15 trout over 20 inches and lost one in my net around 27”. Fished three days last week and 2 keeper trout. Fortunately the redfish population seems fine. Also this.
TX fish kill numbers

An estimated minimum of 3.8 million fish were killed on the Texas coast during the Feb. 2021 freeze event. This fish kill consisted of at least 61 species. Non-recreational species contributed to 91% of the total mortality in numbers of fish. This includes species like Silver Perch, Hardhead Catfish, Pinfish, Bay Anchovy and Striped Mullet. While not sought after by most anglers, non-game fish are ecologically important, providing food for larger game fish as well as adding to the overall diversity of Texas Bays. Recreationally important game species accounted for the other 9% of the total. Of that 9%, the dominant species included Spotted Seatrout (48%), Black Drum (31%), Sheepshead (8%), Sand Seatrout (7%), Red Drum (3%), Gray Snapper (2%), and Red Snapper (<1%).

Both the Upper and Lower Laguna Madre bay systems were hit particularly hard by this event. The Lower Laguna Madre had the highest mortality of Spotted Seatrout with an

estimated 104,000 fish killed. That comprised 65% of the total estimated Spotted Seatrout killed and when combined with the Upper Laguna Madre, it comprised 89% of the total estimated Spotted Seatrout mortality along the Texas coast. Similarly, the Upper Laguna Madre had experienced Black Drum mortality at an estimated 82,600 fish and comprised 78% of the coastwide Black Drum killed.

I still think those numbers are lower than actual, and I really wish they wouldn't have put that out there this soon. That's just going to give a whole bunch of people the mindset that it wasn't as bad as everyone thought, and let's go hammer the fish again. The limit changes will definitely help, but they should have extended it more north to Sargent in my opinion if the kills were as bad as a lot of the pros in that area reported.

going to my buddy's fish camp on the intercoastal just south of Arroyo City in a couple of weeks. At night we usually see hundreds of small trout under the lights off his pier. He was there this past week and said the numbers wee way down, but the did catch three over 17 inches under the lights. He has guides basically on retainer and they've told him trout were hurt significantly but redfish seem fine. They have been catching a lot of reds.

I will see in two weeks. We don't historically keep a lot of fish (except Snapper when we run offshore) so the reduced limit is not a big deal for us.