Texas – Areas on the Texas coast are being closed to fishing while an arctic blast sweeps much of the country, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced Saturday.
The closure will take effect at midnight on Monday through 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.
“The high mortality that a freeze can cause may deplete fish stocks for years,” Robin Riechers, director of TPWD’s coastal fisheries division, said in a release.
“Protection of the surviving fish during the few days when they are especially vulnerable to capture would likely shorten the time period for overall recovery of coastal species, especially spotted sea trout.”
These locations are closed: City by the Sea, the Raquetball, Kon Tiki, Bahia Bay, Cove Harbor, La Buena Vida, Little Bay, Palm Harbor, Rockport Harbor, Sea Gun Marina, Army Hole, Brazos Santiago Pass South Jetty, Point Isabel, Moses Lake, Offats Bayou, Matagorda, Palacios Shrimp Basin, Padre Island, Entergy Outfall, Conn Brown and Port Mansfield. For more information on locations of closures, check the TPWD website.
These areas are characterized by deep water that can provide thermal refuge to marine life during the freeze. Fish will congregate to them when temperatures drop in shallower waters. The last time TPWD shut down coastal fishing areas because of freezing conditions was in January 2018.
Frigid water temperatures can lead to mortalities and there are sure to be localized fish kills in the days ahead. However, TPWD science director Mark Fisher said the ecological impacts of this weather event will not resemble the freezes in 1983 and 1989, devastating events that saw tens of millions of dead fish, marred coastal fisheries for years beyond and forever changed the way they were managed.
