The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Last Year’s Troubles 

LET’S TAKE A LOOK, shall we, at the short- and long-term impacts of COVID 19 and the 2021 February freeze on Texas’s fisheries and fishermen. 

When the world shut down because of COVID, local, state and national lawmakers felt rightfully obliged to keep us all safe—from each other, of course. However, in many cases also from ourselves. It was as if we weren’t able to protect ourselves without supervision.

I’m entirely convinced that most Texans, given the choice, would have made good personal-health decisions as they watched a dreadful disease kill tens of thousands of people around the country.

The obvious good that came from those early, oddball and hard-to-understand restrictions was the undeniable avoidance of some unknown number of infections and deaths. The bad was that more than a few local jurisdictions felt compelled to join the shutdown parade. They exercised kneejerk options to deny access to such relatively safe places as boat ramps, beaches and parks.

All three rank among the safest places we could have gone during that time. When we desperately needed fresh air and sunshine, we were told to stay home. That was not good for our emotional health.

The ugly started when outdoors-loving Texans who are accustomed to moving freely around their beloved state were told “No!” to enjoying its natural resources. But for the occasional trip to the grocery store in search of toilet paper, we were under house arrest.

We needed access to the outdoors. As always, it offers families and their close, trusted friends opportunities to stretch their bodies and minds beyond the suddenly depressing confines of home.

Closed beaches? That was somewhat ridiculous. I’ve fished the beachfront hundreds of times and not once, ever, stood for 15 minutes or more within six feet of anyone.

Nor can I recollect any time when I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with someone at a boat ramp for a quarter-hour. I’d guess that even at coastal bait camps, in a summertime line for live croakers, fishermen wouldn’t have minded putting two yards between themselves as they waited to fill their buckets.

Fast forward to February of 2021 and the horrific failure of this state’s power suppliers to supply power during one of the worst freezes in recorded history. It was, for hours or days—or even weeks in some areas, not unlike living in the Stone Age. Except that people who lived then didn’t know what was missing as the temperature dropped and the sun set. They just dealt with it or died.

However, we made it, relatively unscathed in most households. Also, we learned a lot about how tough we could get when the chips are frozen. 

Inland fisheries survived the deep freeze with relatively minor loss. Not so, our coastal fisheries, however.They hadn’t dealt with such temperature extremes since the 1980s.

We held our breath as temperatures rose and dead fish floated. Not long afterward, speculation began on every coastal corner about how many fish we’d lost—especially speckled trout, the perennial favorite of coastal fishermen whatever the weather.

We’ll never know precisely how many Texas trout succumbed to the cold, but it’s fair to say there was notable loss from the Sabine River mouth to the Rio Grande.

The good that came from this was a lasting revival and onset of interest in conservation. This happened even among people who might not have leaned that way prior to the freeze. They saw the dead fish, whether in person or in pictures. They heard about dead trout from friends and neighbors and guides and podcasts and radio shows.

The ugliest aspect of that event showed up in photographs of people continuing to string full limits of trout almost immediately after weather abated. There was no shortage of photos of dead fish on decks or conversation among fishermen deluding themselves that they did no harm by continuing to fish as if nothing had changed. 

Despite being told how important it was to wait before killing more fish until we learned what the freeze had claimed, some people just kept on grinding. They took what they considered to be their fair share on a regular basis.

The freeze revealed who actually cared about the resource—and who cared more about personal bragging rights. It was also interesting to see how many people’s stringer shots and boastful posts were NOT met with the level of constructive criticism I expected. 

Conservationists on social media applauded each other for not keeping trout while the others continued to make themselves look more selfish—but were not called to task for doing so.

Now, we’re a year past the freeze and two years into what history books likely will recall as another major pandemic. Now, we’re better at dealing with cold, and we’re better at continuing to function during a global pandemic.

That is good. We’re also talking more about conserving and rebuilding our natural resources. As a lifelong Texan, I think that’s great.

 

Email Doug Pike at ContactUs@fishgame.com

 

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