Freeze: Sabine, Galveston & Calcasieu Update

The freezing conditions that hit the Gulf Coast are now gone and many anglers and wildlife lovers are concerned with the aftermath. Reports of large kills of fish near Port O’Connor, Rockport, Aransas Pass and in the Port Mansfield era echo freeze kills of the past that have greatly impacted the fishery, especially with speckled trout. The following are personal observations, communications with readers, social media followers and guides about Sabine Lake, the Galveston Bay complex and Lake Calcasieu.

Sabine Lake

Since I live there, I had the opportunity to closely monitor the area beginning the day after the freeze struck. Here’s what I saw and recorded from others.

Bridge City Area

Vast areas of the estuary adjacent to the lake were frozen over including much of Bessie Heights Marsh and parts of the Keith Lake chain of lakes. I expected to see a massive kill of mullet and other small baitfish in areas like the Lower Neches Wildlife Management Area but after daily monitoring I have seen zero dead fish. I did get one report of a dead black drum and a few mullet on the shoreline of Old River Cove near the old Bailey’s Fish Camp but that was it. Incidentally it seemed like every duck hunters did not see in the season were out there with lots of teal, scaup, ringnecks and a few mottled ducks.

Northern Portion of Sabine Lake

Traveling from Cow Bayou down the Intracoastal/Sabine River and examining the passes and first 1/4 mile of Black’s Bayou we saw nothing. The Coffee Ground Cove area was also devoid of any dead fish and this was echoed by Capt. Eric Ellison who checked the area later and saw none. The Louisiana shoreline was also barren of dead fish except for the shoreline at The Pines where I found one dead trout that measured 19 inches. I also spent several hours examining Pleasure Island and found no dead fish there and plenty of signs of life with some baitfish working at the outflow of the north levee.

 

Stewts Island And Hickory Cove

This area holds trout in the winter and some large ones so it was an area of concern in terms of trout. We found no dead fish there but it was shocking seeing the shoreline looking like white sand beaches from Florida from a distance. It was of course ice.

Southern Half of Sabine Lake

A lengthy, detailed look at the southern half of Sabine Lake from Johnson Bayou south including moving into the interior of those cuts showed no dead fish. An interesting note here and into the channel at Sabine Pass is there was a lot of hydrilla floating in some areas. This either came out of some of the backwaters way into the Louisiana marsh in Black’s Bayou between Sabine and Calcasieu or floated down river but there was a noticeable amount.

Sabine Pass And Jetties

Like virtually everywhere else we found no dead fish. What was a little surprising were the numbers of dolphin in the pass. While dolphins live in our area year-round, there were far more in the channel between Lighthouse Cove and the four way boat ramp than at the jetties. They were heavily feeding on something, showing there was a strong presence of baitfish in the pass.

According to Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) Ecosystem Program Leader Carey Delpi there have been no reports of any large fish kills in the area.

“So far, we have received no reports from the area. The water temperature (Monday a.m.) is 45 degrees which is above the threshold to kill trout. It got down to 40 degrees here,” he said.

Galveston Bay

We have heard very little out of the Galveston Bay complex with most social media posts talking about how the area “dodged a bullet”. There have been some small, isolated kills. Roland Martinez found a variety of dead fish along a 100-yard stretch of beach at the Texas City Dike. They were mostly hardheads but also included needlefish and a spadefish. At the time of this writing we have calls into TPWD Kills & Spills Team members in the region but have not made contact.

 

Lake Calcasieu (Big Lake)

We can verify there have been a few reports of redfish dead in Lake Calcasieu although at this time there have been no reports of large-scale or widespread kills. The marsh around Spicer’s Marina in the Hackberry area is one location that had dead reds. Southwestern Louisiana got hit by fish kills during Hurricanes Laura and Delta so there is much relief in the region that so far Calcasieu has had no major reports of kills.

We will continue this coverage as we get information from along the Gulf Coast. There is still a chance we could see more fish on the Upper Coast and even in Louisiana as sometimes it takes awhile for fish to float up. We will report here as we receive information.

Tune into the latest edition of Higher Calling Gulf Coast podcast to hear an overlooked aspect of this freeze event.