When growing up, I use to be intrigued by listening to stories from my parents, aunts and uncles about their time fishing down at Sabine and Bolivar. Not only them but any ole dark skin old salt that fished his life away long before I was born. At a young age, their stories seemed like a pipe dream and something that I would never get to experience. Here we are, twenty some odd years later, and their stories have no factual base, only hearsay. However, even if you take in the anglers exaggeration, their typical stories still rival my best fishing trips I have ever had.
We have all seen old black and white photos with stringers full of fish and have read old articles about how it once was. One of my favorite books is ‘Plugger’ by Rudy Grigar and he perfectly encapsulates what fishing was in the early to mid 1900’s on the Gulf Coast. If you have not read it, I strongly urge you too.
The hard reality is that fishing on the Gulf Coast is not what it once was…not even close.
This week TPWD will voting on making changes to the bag limit of Speckled Trout from Matagorda all the way down to the Laguna Madre. These changes are occurring because of the historic freeze we had in 2021 that produced a major fish kill. Populations are down according to the surveys taken by TPWD, so it only seems fit to make changes to bag limit. These changes are only temporary and will expire August 31, 2023.
Prior to the most recent changes of the Trout, came the change in Flounder bag limits. This is a delicate topic with most anglers because it is the first time (at least in my life) that Texas completely closed a fishery for a short period of time. If you do not know, Flounder mass migrate out into the Gulf to spawn during the Fall and this is the best time to catch them; it was recently shutdown during their annual peak migration to the Gulf. TPWD has been taking gill net surveys and the research after several years shows a downward trend. Seeing this, they decided to take a proactive approach to make changes that would help their population.
With these major changes happening in recent years, it has left a lot of anglers upset.
One of the question that I often ask myself is how did we get to this point?
Well if you look back to the mentality of how our grandparents fished, that is a start; it’s not their fault because they didn’t know any different. However, years of dragging huge seine nets in the surf and bays did not help one bit. Along with that, the commercial side of fishing was dong twice the damage. We all know this put a huge dent in our fish population.
Next on the list is loss of habitat. I personally believe this is one of the biggest concerns that we face today. Widening and deepening of the ship channel has turned into saltwater flowing where it normally should not. Which in turn, kills an ecosystem that is not designed for that. Vice versa, when the dams of Toledo and Rayburn release records amount of consistent freshwater into our lake, that kills saltwater species and disrupts other native species and their habits. Kind of a double edge sword here on Sabine.
Without proper habitat, our fishery will continue to suffer.
And the last thing, which is completely out of our hands, is the weather. Within the past 5 years we have had hurricanes, rising ocean temperatures, record amounts of rain and historic freezes. These are instances that we can never plan for.
When a hurricane comes, it erases acres of marsh land and they also cover our oysters in silt, which causes them to die. It is said that 90% of the oyster reef in Galveston Bay died after Hurricane Ike because it was blanketed in silt. After that, Hurricane Harvey killed a large majority of the remaining oysters because of the large freshwater influx of the rain.
The freeze we had last year was one of the worst in my lifetime. Anglers think that we did not get a fish kill on the upper coast but I know for a fact it happened. I counted several dead fish along the banks of our lakes but it was just a mere fraction of what occurred further south of us. What happened there is disheartening.
The other factor that is affecting the Flounder directly is the warming of the Gulf. You can call it whatever you would like but it is happening. The thing about Flounder is that their hatchlings have a 3-4 degree temperature tolerance to survive. If it is anything outside of that, their survival is minimum. In the past years, the Ocean and Gulf water has been getting warmer and unless we have a good winter, the water is too warm for a optimal Flounder offspring. Which in return, results in less Flounder to be caught in the future.
Why it matters
When it comes to the future of our fishery, it is ultimately up to us. We are the ones that have a direct impact to it- good or bad. We can not control the weather, we don’t have deep enough pockets to buy out large corporations, all we can do is our own part. We do this as entertainment and we do it recreationally. That being said, let’s take care of what we have. History has proven time and time again ,that people are really good at recognizing a problem after it is too late. So please, let us trust TPWD and support them with the decisions they make; it is for the good of our fishery and ultimately, our good.
I guess the true reason I wrote this is because I dwell on days past. Old stories of anglers fishing a new frontier has always intrigued me. I know that the fishery that my parents and grandparents once fished will never come back; them days are long gone. What I truly hope for is one day that my grandkids will tell me their fishing stories and I hope it is everything I got to experience.I hope they never have to recollect my old stories of like it use to be.
Enjoy Life