Fish Kill In The Mosquito Lagoon

My wife and I decided to take Elmo and Odie for a ride this past Sunday to see if the cold weather we have been suffering with these past few days had caused a fish kill.

I tried fishing Patillo Creek on Saturday, but nothing was hitting.  I used shrimp and crab along the deeper stretches, but after an hour of freezing my butt off, I gave it up.

Sunday, the weather was a bit warmer but even though I brought along a couple of rods, we never bothered putting out a line.

Odie took his favorite position with me in the driver's seat and we headed towards Haulover Canal as our first stop.

There were boats out and a lot of people fishing along the bank, but nobody I spoke with was catching anything of any consequence.

We drove around Beacon 42 boat launch, and only one trailer was parked.  This was a good indication that the fishing was not too great.

From there, we drove to Patillo Creek where I talked to a fisherman from Albany, New York who was also getting skunked.

He was fishing with "smelly shrimp", fresh dead shrimp, and crab, which under normal circumstances should have gotten him at least a bite from a black drum, but he told us that after a couple of hours, he never got a hit.

We wished him good luck and drove to the turn around where Karen spotted some dead tarpon in the water close to the bank.

We stopped to get a better look while I tossed a topwater bait around the area.  Again, not even a follow up.

There were a half dozen juvenile tarpon scattered along the bank of Patillo Creek that had apparently been victims of  the cold snap. 

I took a couple of pics and loaded the boys up so we could ride up to Bio Lab Road.

The culvert at Bio Lab road was open and flowing but there was no activity there.  Some people were crabbing on the opposite side of the culvert, but nobody was fishing.

As we drove slowly down Bio Lab road towards the beach, I discovered why nobody was fishing.

The banks of the Mosquito Lagoon were littered with dead juvenile tarpon and various sized snook.

I took several pics and compiled this short video.

From the entrance of Bio Lab road at the boat launch, all the way down to the beach, the majority of dead fish seemed to be along the northern section of the road.

On Sunday, there were a lot of sightseers but I seemed to be the only person fishing.

After we got to Playalinda Beach road we decided not to make the drive down to the beach but to go home and get something for dinner.

This last week's cold snap was almost as bad as the one we had a few years ago that killed off the snook population in the lagoons.  Fortunately, it didn't last as long.

Hopefully, the snook and tarpon population will rebound quickly.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.