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lukkyracer
Posts: 779 Officer
Dead Snook?
lukkyracer
Posts: 779 Officer
I ask this question because the kayak guide who knows more about snook than anyone else in the world is saying they have been wiped out worse than 2010.
Replies
Anyone who says that Snook in the recent cold spell have been wiped out worse than 2010 does not know what he is talking about.
If you are too busy to join the Florida Guides Association, EDF, the Ocean Conservancy, the Charter Fishermen's Association to help us take your constitutional rights away with our illegal GPS tracking scheme which undercuts our own members then you are just too busy!
AN ARTICLE IN JADA (JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN DENTAL ASSOCIATION) IN 2001 HAS THE ADMISSION THAT FLUORIDE SWALLOWED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE TEETH IS "INSUFFICIENT TO HAVE A MEASURABLE EFFECT" ON REDUCING CAVITIES."
THE NOW CORRUPTED MEDIA MANIPULATES BY USING ORWELLIAN NEWSPEAK. In Orwell's words, Newspeak was "designed to diminish the range of thought." Newspeak seeks to eliminate or alter certain words that do not fit the media's ideological agenda. In Orwell's novel 1984 Newspeak is a way of controlling the people's language in order to keep the peons under ideological control.Newspeak is deceptive and deceitful as it stifles free speech and only allows only certain approved words, phrases and ideas to be used while other words are forbidden.
Fauci's "Gain of Function" is newspeak for enhancing the contagiousness of a virus for use as a biological weapon in war. It was dumb, stupid and a threat to national security for the US government with Fauci's blessing to help fund biological weapons enhancement in an arch enemy's country. When Fauci used and pushed the euphemistic misnomer deceptive term "gain of function" the con was on.
"Gain of Function" newspeak for "Viral Biological Warfare Weapons Enhancement".
"Undocumented Immigrant" newspeak for "illegal alien".
"Progressive" newspeak for "Marxist".
"Dreamers" newspeak for "illegal aliens".
"Immigration Reform" newspeak for "illegal alien amnesty".
"Xenophobia" newspeak for those that want border security.
"Gun control" newspeak for "confiscate your guns".
"Pro-choice" newspeak for "pro-abortion".
"Math is racist" newspeak for "we are too lazy to learn math".
"Critical Race Theory" newspeak for "Reverse Discrimination Marxism".
When a snake oil salesman knows that the snake oil does not sell with the accurate name he simply changes the name to the NEWSPEAK euphemistic misnomer "Magic Medicinal Elixir" to sell his misrepresented product otherwise not sellable.
Agreed
Chris
Gulf Coast of FL
@flatsfrenzy #flyonly #onelessspinrod
Fact of the matter is that anything north of Pinellas is on the marginal natural range for snook populations, thermally speaking, and fish are gonna die when it gets cold. If he really had a clue and wanted to protect snook populations, he would be fighting for the protection of brackish creeks from development and changes in natural hydrology. That's where the recruitment gets bottlenecked.
Not a single snook floating but several perch or silver jennies
Some big ol’ lumpy-headed, Prince Charles-toothed sheepies showing up too
Kinda familiar with your info source. Good fellow, and he means well, but does have a flair for the dramatic :wink
Agreed. We hit the teens with lows during that time. It was insane.
This past front was a cakewalk in comparison. Only snook I've seen suffer were in New Smyrna Beach...
well said:thumbsup
All this hysteria over cold water snook kills always chaps my ****! I'm old enough to remember cold weather snook kills dating back to the 1960s and never have they failed to make a comeback, with or without season closures!! Anyone with a remote sense of nature cycles understands that mother nature cleanses itself to put species stability back in play. With snook, it seems to be every 15-20 years or so. When snook are caught in the Suwannee River or the St Mary's on the east side, it's probably time for a hard freeze to put them back in their normal regions. IMHO, the closure in 2010 was totally unnecessary and only implemented to satisfy a few Charlotte harbor guides. There are hundreds of thousands of snook offshore totally unaffected by any freeze along with equal numbers inshore that manage to find warm water outfalls that represent more than enough brood stock to repopulate any deficiencies caused by a major kill. I often fish the upper fresh water reaches of the Peace River, an area severely affected by freezes. And yes, it does take a couple of years for the snook to recover. The '83 was the worst I've experienced (yes, worse than 2010) and the snook populations roared back within a few years WITHOUT any closures implemented.
The greatest effect of freezes on snook populations is on the smaller fish that you don't see. Whole year classes are often wiped out. The large fish won't let the little ones into the springs so the little guys are on their own in the marshes and mangroves. And yes, the populations do recover fairly quickly especially if the southern areas are not affected. If the density is high, they redistribute to the northern areas where there is less competition following freeze years. It seems like only the northern extremes of their range was affected this year unlike in '83 and '10 when the effects of the freezes went all the way down to the northern Everglades.
I remember both the 83 and the 2010 freeze. I think there was a freeze in 77 also... on that one, my father and I walked the tarpon outflow canal and there were dozens of dead snook, and even what looked like a small Goliath grouper... they do bounce back, but I just still hate to see the waste... unfortunately not much we can do about it...
SWO LCDR, USN-Retired
Sea Chaser 200 Flats Series
Old Town Predator Kayak
Have seen it firsthand
I was a rampant gill netter back in the day and don't remember more than a half a dozen snook in my nets here back then.
Diego - I haven't seen any dead snook in TB at all. I fish Fort D a lot and snook that we found were healthy and active. I agree on the bucktail!
Pinellas point / Ft. D always seem to get hit hard...it's like the fish who go to the limited number of canals and don't go deep start to die off if there's more than 4 days or so of air temps below 40 in a row. 2010 was tough...found a lot of dead ditch alligators while turkey hunting that spring
You got that right, I quit that forum when I was trying to explain why the FWC was opening snook back up and he accused me of trying to "spin" the facts. My response was to please remove me from your mailing list and I won't bother you again. He is quite the know it all, or so he thinks.
My posts are my opinion only.
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. Will Rogers
I was on Capmel since the beginning and he's the reason why the forum took a dump. That and he totally borked over the migration to the new BB platform.
Copy it and paste it, I'm good for a laugh.
My posts are my opinion only.
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. Will Rogers
Zero response from the state of Florida. Three letters. Not a single acknowledgment. After the mistakes of the past there are a few things that just don’t bode well. Not talking to us is one. A second, no one anywhere ran into a biologist. This I don’t understand. I mean, if that’s your job? Where are you.
Different arguments. I still get people that say snook numbers were great. I shrug that off. I did another 250 days on the water in 2017. If snook were so abundant wouldn’t we be catching them? On accident, if snook were so plentiful, wouldn’t they be a daily catch? We only caught an accidental snook every couple of weeks. That is a very good random sampling I provide. The condition of snook in 2009 before the big freeze: 12 snook per trip, average size was 32 inches. How do you compare what we have now to that? You can’t. I am but one “expert.” I have the support of the general guy who knows what’s going on.
Pretty basically, why wouldn’t we want the largest population of big snook as fast as possible? There are literally dozens of other species readily available “to eat.” Why do we have to hurt our future by harvesting our premiere gamefish? Speckled trout are a great example. We can’t hurt that fishery. There are more trout than I have ever seen in my life. Not as cold sensitive, they have not been hit by a red tide in years and those should be taken at will. Eating a snook: I just don’t see it. A snook is more valuable alive than dead. Example for the economy: I have 12 clients I haven’t taken fishing since 2009. Why? They want to catch snook. I haven’t offered the trip. These are just my clients. I am but one guide. That’s 12 people not buying plane tickets. That’s 12 people not getting hotel rooms. That’s 12 people not spending money in our restaurants. That is significant.
You are in the position I have been in. People treat you like you are a fanatic. Like you are extreme. The people who know me realize exactly what I am doing. It is about doing things right. Snook have not been handled right. Do we repeat the mistakes of the past?
Captain Scott Moore is the most knowledgeable guy I have ever met. He calls me. Why? Because I get it. I want things done right. I pushed hard for it. Ultimately, I won, becoming the first guy in history to get the state to admit they were wrong. Here, it starts again. My initial attempts, ignored. My other avenues not yet opened, I figure that I will have discussion going on this fast. You have your input. I’m not saying mine is more important than anyone else’s. But mine is significant. There are probably very few people in the world that know snook better than I do. That isn’t bragging that is a simple fact.
I created the greatest advisory panel ever assembled for the state to use. Did they use it? They acknowledged it. They promised to use it. Two years go by and, no, they did absolutely nothing. The people on my panel, some stunned some not surprised but all were disappointed. I assembled them to make a difference. I layed it on a plate. I made it just that easy. Nothing happened. So you can’t blame me. I did my best to make things better.
Here we are, up against it again. You can’t argue with me. We lost fish. The things up for debate: how bad are things now? My opinion, this may set us back worse than we were in 2010. My colleagues agree. Snook were not fully recovered. Managed differently we would have had more fish to survive this event. Not the way it happened, just where are we now? A biologist can’t tell us. You have to study a problem to know what you are facing. Total failure. Absolute total failure.
Where do we go now? They closed them before. They should automatically close them again. For how long? Well, what do you want? The existing fish will spawn. How many of the spawned fish will we protect to adult status? That depends on how long you keep them closed. I have had lashback. I say seven years. What’s seven years of catch and release to restore a species? It’s nothing. Make the common guy let them go. The more serious fishermen already let them go.
I will continue to take fishing trips. I will continue to avoid snook. I will continue to tell people that snook face challenges other species don’t have. I will continue to tell people how great a fish this once was to catch. You have to realize, I had earned the reputation of a guy who will get you a chance at a world class snook. How do you think I’ve liked it not fishing them for eight years?
The saddest part is the people who didn’t join in. People who practically supported the bad decision makers by their silence. Newspaper people. Television show hosts. People that just took the easy route and didn’t get involved. The Scott Moore’s and the Neil Taylor’s of the world say no to that. We fight for what’s right. This time we will fight it BEFORE they make the wrong decisions. The last time, quite honestly, we were shocked that they did what they did but the reality is: Once the government does something, it is basically impossible to get it undone.
A guy who fishes once a week telling me snook stocks are great. OK. Scott Moore tells me he has some snook but nothing like 2009. I reply “Jealous. I have next to none everywhere I do.” I take Scott’s as fact. He takes mine as fact. The reason, both of us speak cold hard facts. So many locations I go, the snook never came back at all. “The whole picture” snook were getting better but reopening to harvest exposed the fish to removal. Protecting two more classes of fish to adult spawners would have been the best way to go. Try as you will, you can’t argue that, not if you wanted the fishery to approach where it was in 2009.
My nephew is 19 years old. Ultimately, he hasn’t seen good snook fishing in his adult life. He saw it when he was pretty much too young to remember it. Doesn’t it mean something that we had an episode and we have not taken steps to get things back to the way they were? You cannot argue it with me. Snook fishing is nowhere near what it was in 2009. Given the events of cold weather this past week we took another giant step backward. What do we do now? What we do now is talk it over and do it right. If Scott Moore isn’t involved in this decision making, the state has lost again. Use the knowledge. Do all that you can to make good decisions. Is that too much to ask?
They exist to manage our resources. They work for us. You all want to vote me down, fine. If we don’t do this one right this time I assure you, you will never hear from me again. People aren’t going to be happy to read that one. But it’s true. I will do my best, again. But if no one wants a good snook fishery then I can just go about my own business. I can still do business with no snook. I can tell you that it is a shame what happens
NOT EVEN REMOTELY INTERESTED IN READING THAT
It's all bull anyways. I've been out 10+ times in the past two weeks snook were totally fine. Never saw a single dead snook all around TB. They were active and feeding. Water temps at the lowest were about 59 but mostly saw 61-63 in the canals and backwater. It's all bull.
People who complain about "good" snook fishing probably suck at fishing. I've been fishing TB for almost two decades and the snook have rebounded excellent since 2010.