Cold Enough For You?!

SWFinatic
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by SWFinatic »

karstopo wrote:Redfish ought to be in much better shape than trout.
This seems to be a common statement and I would generally agree but the water temps in many areas (from Sargent to Padre) have been and are cold enough both are going to be equally affected IMO. Reds don't live any better than trout in 34 degree water. I think the trout will take longer to rebound than reds (but not sheephead) in part due to limits and reds are harder for many boat fisherman to access. Either way it's a horrible scenario.

Going to be a while before we know the extend of the damage and the rebound time. I wasn't fishing the gulf in 83 but hear it took roughly 5 years before the trout fully rebounded.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

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TrumpkinTheDwarf wrote:New to the forum, didn't see anywhere to introduce myself, so I'll just start chiming in where I feel like it I guess.

I'm a MT transplant to TX so I have no frame of reference for how bad these fish kills are. In a worst case scenario, is this going to have a 2 year impact? 5 year? 20?

I just caught my first redfish back in January and was getting really excited to start figuring out the coastal fishery.
Welcome to the forum!
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Dandydon
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

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Welcome Trumpkin and points for your joining us at one of our LOWEST times... That means everything's UP from here.

As I said earlier, our worst memorable fish kill was back in 1989. I think estimates were made of 25 million gamefish lost. The saltwater fishing was bad for two long years. And it built up slowly after that.

I cannot say how bad this Valentines' Blast compares to 1989. But from what evidence I've seen, it could be that bad. I pray I'm wrong because I love fishing.

I always learn a lot listening to the KILT Outdoors Show on Thursday-Sunday mornings at 4am. Tomorrow morning you can bet that the Fish Kill will be the hot topic. Capt. Eastman and the other pro guides will have much to say. If you can't listen "live," then a podcast is available.

Thanks to all for chiming in.



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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by WY-TX »

Having just spent the last week feeding stock at -15 or so, I spend my indoor time following yall's conversations, wathcing you-tubes of gulf fishing, and dreaming of my every other month trip to PA to fish. The cold that you guys are having to endure breaks my heart; God bless you all and keep you safe. The pictures of the massive fish kill brings me almost to tears. I know Texans are tough, though, and ya'll will get by. Harvey, Covid and now this. Hopefully the state goes to something short of a full ban on fishing. Catch and release, as I do in Northern Wyoming is not the worst thing and at least allows for kayak fishing (in Texas). My prayers go out to all ya'll kayak fishermen. Thanks for the web page and tight lines if we are allowed on the water in coming months.
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shoffer
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

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Thanks WY-TX. We can learn a thing or two from someone who spends time in much worse winter weather than what we had.

Reading the articles, it appears the power situation was caused by the fossil fuel generating plans who did not winterize their plant and were knocked offline. Another cause was the failure of the wind generating turbines that froze, and also did not winterize.

I know everyone will be good and pissed for a while, and demands for ERCOT's head, etc. will bubble to the surface for a while, but I can see both sides. Why would a company spend a ton of cash to ensure for an event that is unlikely to happen? That only makes sense if the result is catastrophic. At the same time, there are many out there who will say what just happened was catastrophic, and we should have been prepared given what happened in 2011 and any massive failure of critical infrastructure across the state is something that simply should not happen - period.

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. One thing is for sure. The entire issue will be politicized, and to me, THAT is the bullsh*t waste of time that I am just tired of seeing. Nothing can get done while everyone is finger-pointing and blaming. It reminds me of when my two sons come running to me arguing about who started a fight - no one gives a sh8t who started it. Just shut the f**k up and fix it.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by bones72 »

Well said Shoffer, I think we are all tired of politics and nothing getting done.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

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My wife is a compliance analyst in the electric distribution industry and deals with Ercot regulations on a daily basis. Ercot demands all electric distribution entities in Texas to be prepared to the extreme extent at all times. For years I've heard her talk about how strict and demanding their regs are. Yet all these strict guidelines in place wasn't enough due to up to 40% of the energy capacity not available for one reason or another at a time when demand far exceeded the original projected energy cap. A couple of reasons that contributed to the lack of capacity were things like frozen seals and ice on fan blades. One generation plant had to shut down and pull of the grid due to a hydrogen alarm. The plant had to be evacuated for safety reasons. Turned out to be a frozen seal on the hydrogen alarm that triggered a false reading so this evacuation and shut down was unnecessary due to one seal. Another plant had ice on the fans blades that are part of the hydro generation system. When the fan kicked on the ice caused the fan blades to be out of balance which sheared the fan off of it's base resulting in a dead generation system until a new fan blade and hub could be built and delivered which takes months. These are just a couple of examples of how missing the little things can turn into something massive.

It's infuriating to be without something we are all used to having no doubt (power, water and/or gas). Could some of these things have been prevented? Some yeah but this was all new weather to many of us including the power generation energy. At home we prepared as best we could but still did not anticipate water freezing in the upstairs bathtub drain line between the first and second floors which busted when the tub was draining. Some things are just really hard to predict in extreme situations like we've all been in.
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TexasJim
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

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My wife read me a post she saw from somewhere that said: 2020 was Hell! In 2021, Hell Froze Over! TexasJim
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Dandydon
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

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My electric power kicked back on yesterday (Wednesday) about noon. Hallelujah to having warmth, TV & and a working refrigerator again!

But my running water is a mere trickle and I need a hot shower like Winnie the Pooh needed honey.

As for the politics, I agree it's devolved into a finger-pointing frenzy of blame. But any sane observer can see that Texas needs to investigate and clean house before our next big crisis arrives.

Good luck to all. Watch out for all the Food Zombies fighting their way into our grocery stores!

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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by SteveRetrieve »

Ed Hirs from UH had some choice words about some of the generating plants closing shop and leaving the state because they couldn’t make any money the way it’s regulated here. So another issue is we barely make enough during peak times, so if some of the generators go offline we’re basically SOL.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by saltykat »

Might have to make my home base in Galveston instead of Rockport next winter. More deep water gives the trout better chance for survival.
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karstopo
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

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I’m anxious to talk with my buddy that’s a big trout hunter in East Matagorda Bay. His fishing efforts are often focused on the quest of finding and catching big trout. I know he’s caught at least one 30” fish and many, many 28-29 inch plus fish. His fishing buddy wading right next to him got a 31” plus, 11 pound fish not too many years ago.

East Matagorda bay isn’t exactly deep, but there are areas on the east end that offer deep water refuge.

There are other channels that are deep and offer potential winter cold water refuge for big trout, some that don’t get much current that might present problems for fish trying to conserve energy.

No doubt, the trout caught in shallow water are dead, but the question is how deep did the damage go?
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Ron Mc
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by Ron Mc »

a regular on corpusfishing reported dead snook and drum in the bottom of his canals - that's part of the deeper water the state closed to fishing during the freeze.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by ben_beyer »

karstopo wrote:I’m anxious to talk with my buddy that’s a big trout hunter in East Matagorda Bay. His fishing efforts are often focused on the quest of finding and catching big trout. I know he’s caught at least one 30” fish and many, many 28-29 inch plus fish. His fishing buddy wading right next to him got a 31” plus, 11 pound fish not too many years ago.

East Matagorda bay isn’t exactly deep, but there are areas on the east end that offer deep water refuge.

There are other channels that are deep and offer potential winter cold water refuge for big trout, some that don’t get much current that might present problems for fish trying to conserve energy.

No doubt, the trout caught in shallow water are dead, but the question is how deep did the damage go?
On the Bite Me podcast, Captain Caleb McCumber had been catching in the SouthWest corner of East Matagorda and pointed out that it's a long ways to deeper water from there.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

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For 3 or 4 days, the Rockport Tide Station showed the water temp at around 44 degrees F. That's cold, and apparently low enough to kill many fish. Today, it's 45 and climbing. The Port Aransas Tide Station has been holding at 58 or so, due to the Gulf water influx. Hopefully, lots of the big Reds and sow trout were offshore. Ty Sutherland's 30milesout youtube video showed lots of dead fish in Rockport and LHL, but they only saw one Red on the shore. Unfortunately, they saw quite a few dead snook. It's warming up here, almost 50 in south Rockport. TexasJim
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by bones72 »

My guess is the snook and mangrove snapper took a very hard hit followed by trout and reds. I've caught sheepshead and blackdrum way up the east coast into the cooler months so perhaps they faired better. Not sure if flounder were effected much. I couch though thinking about people across different regions. I grew up in Virginia (not exactly the great north) and consider 60 degrees fairly warm my in-laws and my wife, all Texas natives, on the other hand are in winter jackets in any temp under 70. Then it seems like much of the bait is just dead and if a fish did make it through the temps what is he going to eat. Still cant get over the picture of the "flounder hole" on the first page of this thread, hard to believe all those hard heads/gafftops washed up. On the Chesapeake you can catch hard heads and toadfish in the dead of winter with ice flows in the water.

Its all a very concerning situation and I sometimes feel guilty thinking about it when so many across the state are still screwed between water, electric, and food. I'll be down sometime in March regardless. Its always worth wetting a line and the folks down that way, I am certain, could use some outside dollars in their economy.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by fred »

Little Bay (Rockport) did NOT freeze. I've not seen any ice or dead fish on Aransas Bay in the Fulton area.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by SWFinatic »

Time will tell just how bad it really is. I've seen some sickening pics and video of shores lined with dead game fish and bait fish. Keep in mind the majority of the fish that died are still laying on the bottom and won't surface until water temps warm up quite a bit. My gut tells me this fish kill will be as bad as 83 and take longer to rebound due to the number of people fishing these days compared to 83. Sure hope I'm wrong.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

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I’ve seen a few things on FB debating that we should all volunteer to practice catch and release, or at the least retain only one and not always getting your limit. What do y’all think?
I will stand back and wait for the answers. :wink:
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

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JW FunGuy wrote:I’ve seen a few things on FB debating that we should all volunteer to practice catch and release, or at the least retain only one and not always getting your limit. What do y’all think?
I will stand back and wait for the answers. :wink:
It will be a touchy subject for some but I am absolutely unequivocally on board with catch and release ONLY at least for the areas from Sargent down to Port Mansfield until TPWD can survey the damage and let us know what they recommend. In my opinion it will be nothing short of selfish to keep a limit of fish caught inshore in the mentioned areas within the next few weeks as they are going to be easier to catch. Maybe for the next few months. Just my two cents.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by Crusader »

karstopo wrote:Redfish ought to be in much better shape than trout. Most all the big breeders are safe in relatively warm offshore waters and redfish are tougher than trout in the cold anyway.
Yeah, but on the other hand it takes couple of years (4-5?) for redfish to reach 24". I.e. if they get wiped out in bays -- it will take this many years for breeders to restore population of slot reds.
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karstopo
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by karstopo »

Crusader wrote:
karstopo wrote:Redfish ought to be in much better shape than trout. Most all the big breeders are safe in relatively warm offshore waters and redfish are tougher than trout in the cold anyway.
Yeah, but on the other hand it takes couple of years (4-5?) for redfish to reach 24". I.e. if they get wiped out in bays -- it will take this many years for breeders to restore population of slot reds.
https://www.louisianasportsman.com/fish ... be-tricky/

Redfish grow a lot faster than you might think. Take a look at the link. 2 year old redfish average 27”.
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karstopo
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by karstopo »

https://gcrl.usm.edu/public/fish/spotted.seatrout.php

Trout grow slower than redfish. 2 year old fish will be around 12”. A 3 year old female trout might be 16”.

https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/species/reddrum/

According to the TP&W link that puts redfish growth slower than the Louisiana one, redfish get to slot size in their second or third year.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by karstopo »

https://youtu.be/-pdS8aWTSjY

Compilation of guides up and down the coast of the recent coldwater related fish kill. Painting a pretty bleak picture in some areas.
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Re: Cold Enough For You?!

Post by ben_beyer »

JW FunGuy wrote:I’ve seen a few things on FB debating that we should all volunteer to practice catch and release, or at the least retain only one and not always getting your limit. What do y’all think?
I will stand back and wait for the answers. :wink:
I'm doing it as precaution. But if I see someone with a stringer of fish, I'm not bad mouthing them per se.

I think there is a LOT of education to be done because the "Old Salts" are saying to leave them alone and let those that survived rest and recover. That being said some people may not know and I'm already seeing hero shots of people slaying Redfish and Trout on Social Media.

Chances are they don't realize they don't understand the potential damage they are doing to recruitment classes over the next few years or they don't care and want their fillets for a fish fry.

And I'm not saying this was or wasn't a disaster. We need the data from the surveys to know what damage was actually done. Until then I'd rather catch and release so I can continue catching the next few years rather than constantly getting skunked because we simply do not know the impact this storm had yet.
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