At first light of dawn on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 my wife, Travis, and I departed Clark’s landing with Capt. Bill Caldwell and as guests of Travis’ brother, John, to seek fish from the deep. The early a.m. was quite still and we could have made it out to the rigs, but enjoyed a delightful sunrise on our way to the jetties, and instead of the gulf, fished the waters on either jetty side with great success. As we moved about in the gulf area beyond the jetties, Capt. Bill pointed out stretches of reddish brown water that he recognized as patches of red tide. We had occasion to pass through some of this surface which caused Bill to cough a bit and my brother-in-law to complain of itchy eyes while he sneezed. It had somewhat the odor of mildew to me; Travis noted no effects.
Travis and John grew up in Austwell, and in all their time on the coast did not recall a red tide ever coming up into this area. Though a native born Texan, I grew up in New Orleans with trips up and down the coast as far as Gulfport and Biloxi, MS with rare trip South as far as Corpus Christi. I had heard reports of red tide from folks who vacationed in Florida but never had known it to appear along this coast where we often fished the waters and reefs of San Antonio Bay.
Capt. Bill, a native of Port O’ Connor, explained that the red tide occurred when there was excessive salinity of the water (in light of our months and months of drought) as well as particularly warm water temperatures. This allowed the algae which formed the tide to thrive vigorously thus depriving the fish of oxygen as well as giving off some sort of toxin that was concentrated in shellfish. A bit of later research indicated the substance to be brevetoxin, a neurotoxin secreted by the algae called Karenia brevis. Human consumption of shellfish from red tide contaminated waters is contraindicated.
On the way back to port and for lunch, we noted some isolated streaks of the reddish brown water piercing into the vigorous tidal flow of the jetties. Well, that’s a good stretch from there down to San Antonio Bay that opens east into Hynes Bay which is a nursery bay. The chain of islands and inter-coastal canal should be protection enough. WRONG. Although another fishing trip of family from Port O’ Connor produced reds and trout and other various species, the seep and creep of red tide worked its way toward the back bays.
On the weekend of October 29-30, friends from Austwell came out to see if we had any dead fish along the shoreline. So far we seemed safe, even though at the city pier in Austwell there were loads of dead shad and a fair number of river catfish. (We went to the shorelines to observe the mess and massive fish kill). By Tuesday, November 1st, there were gasping menhaden (shad) as well as many already dead on our little beach. There were gaff top catfish, an occasional mullet, but we saw no reds, drum, trout, or crabs. A week or so later there is also a significant residue of very odiferous sting rays which delight only our three dogs. All three required extensive bathing before they could make the Thanksgiving trip for a five doggie sleep over. As of this writing on December 8th, there are still fairly fresh new victims of the red tide appearing occasionally along the shores of Hynes Bay. It has been a field day for the pelicans and also for the buzzards. We give thanks for the “clean-up” crews provided by nature.
The photo of the dead and dying fish was taken on November 1, 2011.
Three Dog Beach
