State Wildlife & Fisheries agents say do not be surprised to see some fairly large fish kills in Louisiana waterways over the coming days. LDWF Director of Marine Fisheries Chris Schieble (SHE-blee) says these often happen when the temperature drops suddenly and water cools and contracts…
“Sometimes they can get caught up in areas that aren’t ideal; where they can’t get to a refuge in deeper, warmer water…and then we can have fish kills that happen,” he says.
Scheible says often fish that die from getting too cold sink to the bottom first, before floating to the top. He says that’s why it may be a few days before the extent of the fish kill is known. Coastal species commonly affected by a sudden hard freeze are sand seatrout, red drum, black drum and spotted seatrout. He says some of our most popular plate fish are somewhat tougher when it comes to low temperatures…
“Redfish can be in water as low as 39 degrees before they can have problems, so they’re more resilient where Spotted Seatrout and White Trout – for example – are not as hardy.”
The bitter cold of the Christmas weekend should begin to warm up today. Schieble says, because the freeze only lasted a few days the number of fish killed may be somewhat small, but it may take some time before the impacts that freeze has had on fish is evident.
If you spot significant fish kills, please report where to LWDF. “wlf.louisiana.gov”
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