Texas fisheries survive devastating winter

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If, as Winston Churchill famously noted, "Nothing in life is as exhilarating as being shot at with no effect," Texas' speckled trout, redfish, black drum, croaker, striped mullet and all other marine life in the state's inshore waters should be downright giddy about now. Texas' saltwater anglers, too.

Over the past three months, winter has fired a steady series of Arctic bullets at the Texas coast. None of them solidly connected, although a couple, including the one that whistled over Texas this past week, came disturbingly close and did leave a few dead and wounded in their wake.

And while this winter almost certainly will fire a couple of other cold shots at Texas, history indicates that if the coast can make it to the end of February without taking a direct hit, the threat is over until next winter's assault.

Had things been just a little different - had those frozen bullets been a little bigger or ricocheted around a bit - the consequences could have been disastrous for the state's coastal fisheries, Texas' almost 800,000 saltwater anglers and the $2 billion in economic impact those anglers annually pump into the state's economy.

That certainly is the case in North Carolina, where this brutal winter scored a fatal hit on coastal fisheries and left the state's 1.5 million saltwater anglers as collateral damage. More on this in a moment.

Fish outlast cold temps

While no major fish kills have resulted from this winter's unusually severe sieges of cold weather, more than 1,100 cold-stunned sea turtles, such as this one rescued by Padre Island National Seashore staff in mid-December, have been found, with at least 200 turtles perishing from the cold. less While no major fish kills have resulted from this winter's unusually severe sieges of cold weather, more than 1,100 cold-stunned sea turtles, such as this one rescued by Padre Island National Seashore staff in ... more Photo: Picasa Photo: Picasa Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Texas fisheries survive devastating winter 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Freezing temperatures, if they are cold enough and hang around long enough, can, and do, kill coastal fish and other marine organisms. And this winter has been a particularly cold one, with a half-dozen or so truly serious cold fronts reaching the Texas coast, dropping temperatures near the fatal level.

"We got close a couple of times," said Mark Fisher, science director for Texas Parks and Wildlife department's coastal fisheries division. "But, so far, we've dodged the bullet. If we can make it just a couple of weeks longer, we're probably safe."

Texas' coastal marine species - from finfish such as speckled trout to benthic critters such as marine worms - are physically equipped to survive in a mild, semi-tropical or tropical environment. They are not equipped for extreme cold. When water temperature drops below about 45 degrees, most fish and other marine life found in Texas bays begin having trouble maintaining their metabolism. If water temperature drops to 40 degrees or below and remains there for an extended period, the cold-blooded creature's internal organs begin failing and they freeze to death. Some fish suffocate when gills cease being able to extract dissolved oxygen from the water.

If the cold is deep enough, long enough, the death toll can be in the millions.

Could have been worse

It has been 25 years since Texas suffered a catastrophic, freeze-caused fish kill. Freezing temperatures that gripped the coast for four days, Feb. 3-6, 1989, resulted in the death of an estimated 11.3 million finfish in Texas bays. A record-setting freeze Dec. 22-24 that same year killed another 6 million fish. The loss of those 17 million fish crippled the state's recreational fisheries for the following three years.

Since then, Texas' coastal fisheries have suffered a handful of comparatively minor fish kills from freezing winter weather, the most recent in February 2011 when about 60,000 fish died on the middle and lower coast and the most severe in 1997 when as many as 300,000 fish froze to death in the shallow Upper and Lower Laguna Madre.

This winter saw three close calls for the coast. Frigid temperatures dropped water temperature in Galveston Bay to 40 degrees during the nights of Jan. 7-9 and into the low 40s on Jan. 29-30. Water temperatures in Galveston Bay fell into the low 40s a week ago; surface water temperature hit 41 degrees at Eagle Point the night of Feb. 8.

But temperatures didn't hold low enough long enough to do significant damage.

Not all Texas marine life escaped unscathed, though.

"I'm sure it knocked back gray snapper," Fisher said, referring to the tropical species most anglers call "mangrove snapper." Gray snapper, a tropical species that has expanded its range along the Texas coast over the past couple of decades of warmer-than-normal winters, are much more sensitive to cold temperatures than speckled trout, redfish and other common Texas inshore fish.

This winter's cold snaps also affected the state's expanding population of sea turtles, mostly juvenile green turtles that spend much of their time in the bays. This winter, more than 1,000 cold-stunned sea turtles have been recovered from Texas bays and beaches, with about 90 percent of them found in the Upper and Lower Laguna Madre.

About 80 percent of those turtles have been found while they were still alive and taken to recovery centers where almost all have survived. But about 20 percent of the turtles encountered in the wake of this winter's cold snaps were dead when found.

While the freeze-caused loss of the turtles and gray snapper and almost certainly a few snook along the lower Texas coast is unfortunate, it's not a significant blow to the state's coastal marine life. And for that, Texas can be thankful. All we need to realize how lucky we've been is to look at the situation in North Carolina.

The winter storm that dropped temperatures below freezing along the Texas coast at the end of January proved catastrophic to North Carolina's coastal fisheries. Days of sub-freezing temperatures, so cold it locked much of the state's coastal water in a layer of ice, took a brutal toll on the state's marine life, including millions of speckled trout.

Expect flounder surge

The loss was deemed so significant the director of North Carolina's Division of Marine Fisheries issued a proclamation closing all of the state's coastal and inland waters to recreational and commercial harvest of speckled trout. The ban on all harvest of speckled trout took effect Feb. 5 and will continue until June 15 - a four-month closure of one of the state's most economically and recreationally significant fisheries.

Texas' anglers can consider themselves lucky that this state's coastal fisheries avoided such an apocalyptic loss during this particularly mean winter. And they might have been even luckier than they imagined; this cold winter could prove a boon to one of the state's most popular coastal fish - flounder.

Southern flounder spawn in the Gulf of Mexico during winter. And water temperature plays a significant role in determining the success of that spawn. The colder the water, the better.

The sex of newly hatched flounder is influenced by water temperature. If water temperature is colder than normal as the larval flounder float shoreward, more of the fish will develop as females. If water is warmer than normal, more will develop as males. And since females drive the population as well as grow much larger than males (which seldom grow to more than 12 inches), spawns that produce more females than males result in a much more robust fishery.

"We should get really good recruitment of flounder this year," Fisher said, noting that the best flounder recruitment in recent years came in the wake of the colder-than-usually winter of 2010-11.

If that proves correct, Texas' coastal anglers will have even more reasons to count their blessings concerning the winter of 2013-14.