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Red tide at sebastian?

Has anyone fishing the area noticed any effects? I saw the yellow and red dots beachside and inside the river. I plan on making the drive from orlando next week, but dont want to waste the gas if it is in full effect. 

Replies

  • duckmanJRduckmanJR Posts: 21,265 AG
    I have noticed nothing in the river.... 
    There are many roads to travel
    Many things to do.
    Knots to be unraveled
    'fore the darkness falls on you
  • GoonfanaticGoonfanatic Posts: 111 Deckhand
    Thanks Duckman, I know you're out there every day.
  • HappyOursHappyOurs Posts: 3 Greenhorn
    Was out along the beach both north an south of Canaveral jetties Thursday. Loaded the livewell with finger mullet in the port. Looked pretty good up in the bight, but found scads of dying pogies on the surface down by the pier. Turned east to get in better water. Boated a small king in 40’. 
  • Net 30Net 30 Posts: 1,051 Officer
    It's there!  Got message from Indian River Shores Public Safety about tens of thousands of dead fish from Vero to Sebastian.  Talked with my neighbors today on the island and they said you can't go outside due to rotting fish stench.

    Not good at all.  Hope it spares all the big Snook and Red breeders in the inlet!

    https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/indian-river-lagoon/health/2018/10/17/red-tide/1668336002/
  • duckmanJRduckmanJR Posts: 21,265 AG
    Net 30 said:
    It's there!  Got message from Indian River Shores Public Safety about tens of thousands of dead fish from Vero to Sebastian.  Talked with my neighbors today on the island and they said you can't go outside due to rotting fish stench.

    Not good at all.  Hope it spares all the big Snook and Red breeders in the inlet!

    https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/indian-river-lagoon/health/2018/10/17/red-tide/1668336002/
    They should make all those PSO's go pick up dead fish.... LOL 
    There are many roads to travel
    Many things to do.
    Knots to be unraveled
    'fore the darkness falls on you
  • bay20bay20 Posts: 1,491 Officer
    Fished the inlet Sunday with a friend not bad at all, little worse when the wind switched to coming out of the north. We managed to get to short snook, one oversized and one keeper red and handful of jacks.
  • duckmanJRduckmanJR Posts: 21,265 AG
    Well, Todays howling NE wind and strong incoming tide brought a whole bunch of dead rotting fish into the river.  A big bunch was passing south of the spoil island out from yacht club ramp as I was coming in today. People along Indian River Drive that are south of yacht club are about to get an unpleasant surprise. 
    There are many roads to travel
    Many things to do.
    Knots to be unraveled
    'fore the darkness falls on you
  • pjepje Posts: 769 Officer

    Below is Saturday’s NASA ocean color MODIS/VIIRS imagery provided by ROFFS™ and University of Delaware. There appears to be a big pool of red tide off Melbourne with additional pools off Cape Canaveral, Cocoa and Melbourne south to Fort Pierce with some additional to Port St Lucie. We are uncertain about the apparent pool off Cape Canaveral, but have heard that red tide has been found off Ponce Inlet, so there is a good chance that the pool off Cape Canaveral is red tide. Also, there has been a substantial amount of dead fish washing onto Cocoa Beach that may have originated from this pool since the main mass is off Melbourne Beach.   However, without microscopic examination or the discovery of acrid aerosol one can not determine that this is red tide. Another reason for more ocean observing and sampling, as well as, modernizing the coastal ocean buoys to include biological sampling. We had originally observed this high chlorophyll water from Port St. Lucie on October 8th and northward to Vero Beach and even further northward to Brevard County. Thousands of fish have died and continue to wash up on the beach.  Many people continue to call this a natural event, which it is, but forget to say its super fueled by man-made nutrients allowed to enter the waterways by weak water quality regulations that go mostly unenforced, with very limited inadequate monitoring with little personal and corporate responsibility.

    When studying older satellite imagery from October 5th to the 12th we were able to easily see a pulse of very high chlorophyll water (brown) coming from Port St. Lucie inlet area and moving northward. We also followed a filament of Gulf Stream water that went by at approximately the same time. This means that either the red tide and nutrients came from Port St. Lucie inlet, or that a combination of very high nutrient water fertilized the red tide organisms coming up the western side of the Gulf Stream causing this event. Exactly which can not be determined without sampling both the Port St. Lucie area and the Gulf Stream and conducting a DNA-RNA analysis of the red tide (those here now and the red tide off the west coast of Florida). Thus, it appears that our current event on the east coast of Florida north of Port St. Lucie could easily be caused by seeding from either west coast/Gulf Stream or local red tide + nutrients from east coast water releases or red tide algae from the Port St. Lucie inlet area blooming and moving northward. The bloom that moved southward the week or two before from this area to Miami could easily be the same mechanism.

    Oct 20 2018 Ocean ColorRevised

    IMG_1384

    Above: Dead fish wash up on Melbourne Beach, FL on Wednesday October 24, 2018 likely as a result of the presence of red tide.  Photo courtesy: Mitch Roffer.

    This information also appeared in Florida Today on October 23, 2018 – please click here for this article

  • duckmanJRduckmanJR Posts: 21,265 AG
    Yacht club ramp full of dead rotting fish today....City will probably clean it up since they have the " Clam Bake" coming up Nov 1...
    There are many roads to travel
    Many things to do.
    Knots to be unraveled
    'fore the darkness falls on you
  • RangermanRangerman Posts: 87 Deckhand
    What is a PSO?  Google says Patient Safety Organization, but I know its not that above.
  • duckmanJRduckmanJR Posts: 21,265 AG
    Public Safety officer.....
    In this case that Net 30 is referencing ( IRS ) they are firefighter/Paramedics that are also a Police officer. 
    There are many roads to travel
    Many things to do.
    Knots to be unraveled
    'fore the darkness falls on you
  • HUNTINTHEWILDHUNTINTHEWILD Posts: 332 Deckhand
    Are the dead fish mainly mullet or are redfish, snook, sea trout, or tarpon also in the mix?
  • FlecFlec Posts: 735 Officer
    I stopped at 3 different beaches between Wabasso and Melbourne this past Friday and saw dead fish at each stop. I walked around a little and 85% of the fish were either catfish or mullet. I did see 3 moray eels as well. I saw no gamefish at all.
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