‘So many dead fish.’ What cold weather can do to Manatee County’s marine life

Around Christmas of 1989, I remember snow appearing on the front yard at my family’s Bradenton house.

It was a small flurry, but something my young mind was fascinated by and still remembers. 36 years later, isolated flurries returned to the Bradenton and Tampa Bay area, signifying cold weather had arrived.

“I remember going to my uncle’s house in Leesburg the day after Christmas and snow had accumulated on the ground,” said captain Todd Romine in response to the 1989 snow event. But that wasn’t his first. “In 1977, as a kid, we were in gym class at Sugg Middle School and I remember going out and seeing snow flurries then too.”

Romine has spent his lifetime around Bradenton and made his living fishing the inshore waters for more than 40 years. He remembers the effect those freezes had on the fishery, and at the time, they were detrimental to the snook populations.

“I remember how bad ‘89 was to the fish. We had an extremely low tide during the coldest weather. The temps dropped so fast and there was no water for the fish to escape to, and it wiped them out. The following three days were overcast and there was no sun, so the water didn’t warm up. Water temps held in the low 50s for that entire time,” Romine recalled.

“Myself and everyone I talked to guessed we lost probably two-thirds of the snook population at that time. There were so many dead fish. The backs of canals were all loaded with fish from 20 to 40 inches. They had nowhere to go,” he added. “In spring of 1990, we would fish areas that normally we’d see 150 fish and there were only groups of 25 to 30. It was very reduced. I remember fishing Longbar during peak time and if you saw groups of 5 to 7, it was in spots you’d normally see 30 to 40.”

This last cold spell brought freezing air temperatures for multiple nights around Tampa Bay, as well as the rare Florida flurry. While in 1989 and 2010, water temperatures remained cold enough that it killed large groups of fishing around multiple areas, Tampa Bay waters luckily hovered in the mid 50s and the sun returned the next day.

All reports of Tampa Bay fish have been good with a few minor kills. There are reports of small tarpon, snook, trout and more. Areas further north and on the east coast saw a few wider spread kills of mostly snook.

“The backside of this freeze, I think the sun came out and saved a lot of fish,” Romine said. “During the bad freezes, that didn’t happen. It then took three to four years for the fishery to recover after those kills.”

Romine feels like this season and spring fishing will be good, but anticipates the spring season will start to get good later than normal.

“March will probably be cool and windy. April, things should start to straighten out. Our falls now seem to extend into December and the colder weather seems to be into March in recent years,” said Romine. “It’s been a seasonal shift.”

In terms of fishing, once waters warm, fish will be very hungry, and it can be some of the best days of the year. When they begin to leave their cold weather shelters, it’s a great time to hit the flats with a well full of bait.

Any fish kills should be reported at MyFWC.com.