Analyzing the Impact of Last Year’s Frigid February

TEXAS PARKS & WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT (TPWD) biologists have recommended the following special trout regulations.

• Past emergency rule provisions

• Three fish bag limit

• 17- to 23-inch slot limit. No fish over 23 inches.

• From Laguna Madre north through East Matagorda Bay.

• Rule to expire on August 31, 2023 and revert back to previous rule.

These recommendations were made by TPWD staff November 2021 and were in response to gill net surveys conducted over the summer as well as fishing pressure. Although trout numbers declined in many areas, fishing pressure did not.

Crunching Numbers

In mid-June 2021, Coastal Fisheries biologists completed their routine gill net surveys and began analyzing the data for trends. “Data from these sampling efforts were compared to sampling efforts from previous years in spotted seatrout populations,” TPWD officials said.

“Spring gill net sampling when compared to other years shows a decline in spotted seatrout in the upper and lower Laguna Madre bay systems. Spring gill net samplings were not completed in 2020 because of COVID-19.”

The officials reported that gill net data in both the upper and lower Laguna Madre found that the spring 2021 spotted seatrout catch rates were approximately 30 percent lower than the 10-year average.

The data also indicated that there were noteworthy declines in the Matagorda and San Antonio Bay systems in 2021 spotted 

seatrout catch rates. Those catch rates were approximately 40 percent lower than the 10-year average.

For Aransas, Galveston, and Sabine Lake, the data showed catch rates that were at or near the 10-year average catch rates.

“Corpus Christi, in fact, saw a 10 percent increase in catch rates for 2021. Considering the natural annual variation in populations, the freeze impact to these systems appears minimal. Also of note were low salinity levels in multiple Texas bay systems when 2021 levels were compared to the 10-year historical average.”

Historical Perspective

Although the February 2021 event impacted a large area of the Texas coast, the overall number of fish killed in this event appears to be lower than any of the three freeze events in the 1980s according to TPWD officials.

“Using history as a guide, we believe our fishery has the potential to bounce back fairly quickly as it did after the 1980s freeze event,” said Robin Riechers, Coastal Fisheries Division Director. “Based on our long-term monitoring, we saw the recovery in terms of numbers of spotted seatrout bounce back in approximately two to three years. This does not mean the fish size and age structure were the same as pre-freeze, but the overall numbers did return in that timeframe.” 

However, the Spotted Seatrout mortality in the combined upper and lower Laguna Madres is comparable to the events from the 1980s. Below is a breakdown of each event in the 1980s according to TPWD.

• December 1983: 14.4 million fish killed with a geographic extent of the entire coast

• February 1989: 11.3 million fish killed with a geographic extent of East Matagorda Bay south to the Lower Laguna Madre

• December 1989: 6.2 million fish killed with a geographic extent of the entire coast

The 1997 freeze event saw 328,000 fish killed, but had a significantly higher percentage of game species killed (56 percent) than in 2021.

“While some areas of the coast and some species of fish were clearly impacted more than others, overall, this is the worst freeze-related coastal fish kill we have experienced since the 1980s,” TPWD reported.

Hope For the Future

The massive coastal freeze that hit Texas in February killed more than four million fish.

Speckled trout, especially mature fish, were killed by the tens of thousands from Upper Laguna Madre to the Mexico line. That area happens to coincide with the location of the last two Texas state records.

Did the freeze kill the next state record trout?

No one reported finding a fish of that size, but it certainly could have been rotting in a pile of carcasses no one noticed. Or perhaps the fish with that genetic potential died at 10 pounds and we will never know.

It’s important to look back at history for some perspective on this.

Carl “Bud” Rowland caught the current official state record speckled trout May 23, 2002, in Lower Laguna Madre. It weighed 16 pounds and measured a monstrous 37 inches.

This replaced the record trout Jim Wallace caught in Baffin Bay in 1996 that weighed 13 pounds, 11 ounces.

Wallace’s fish beat the 13-9 record held by Mike Blackwood set in 1975. It took 21 years for that record to fall and this year marks 18 years later that Rowland caught his Lower Laguna giant.

One could look at major coastal freeze kills as being a limiting factor in big trout production, and that’s a valid point, but Wallace’s fish came seven years after the major freeze kill of 1989. That fish was definitely born before the freeze.

That should give anglers hope of what is possibly still swimming the waters of the Texas coast or what will appear in a few years.

 

— TF&G STAFF REPORT

 

 

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