One of my favorite lakes is a lake 15 minutes from the house on the St. Johns River. Immediately after Hurricane Ian, I had a really good day and caught a bunch of fish. After that great day the bass fishing has been nonexistent, I mean pitiful. I encountered 4 consecutive skunks. Talk about humble pie! I spoke with an elderly bass angler who fishes the lake 5 or 6 days a week and he said that he hasn't caught a single bass since the hurricane. The guy is a great angler, so it got me thinking, what is wrong? Also, one of the local bass clubs had a tournament there recently and only 1 boat weighed in fish.
I set out to find some answers, so I contacted a fisheries biologist who covers this particular lake. I thought what he said would be interesting to the group. This is what I found out:
Hurricane Ian caused a very widespread crash in dissolved oxygen. High water often causes low oxygen in swampy/marshy river systems but after Ian, it was particularly bad. He thought that it is because there was a long period of low water prior which let the flood plain grow in with too much plant cover that couldn't handle being under water. Then when Ian caused a sudden rise in water and put all that plant matter under water, the decay caused the low oxygen to be particularly bad. During the peak water level after Ian, they couldn't find oxygen in the water anywhere in the entire area! In subsequent electrofishing samples since then, they collected less than 10 bass in 25 electrofishing samples!
Pretty devastating.
Wow. That's insane. I've usually thought high water over flooded bushes was a good thing but def NOT in your case. Did the guy mention if they were going to restock??
Rudy, he didn't mention restocking.
That's kinda a big deal and sucks for all. I wonder how wide spread this is throughout Central Florida. That would be interesting to know as well.
Appreciate the update Flats, sorry to hear this news. :(
Flats, tks for the update on your lake. Tks was interesting piece of information. Hope they do a restocking of the waters effected.
That is really bad news. Was this on both Washington and Poinsett?
Thanks Flats, interesting info. Are all these lakes up your way connected like our water bodies are in south Florida. If so fish of all types will eventually work their way back into this void, and the water quality will return to normal.
G, the lake is part of the upper St. John's River basin so it will naturally replenish itself.
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Update on my local lake, it's been a year and a half since the hurricane and the subsequent fish kill and the bass population hasn't rebounded much at all. A local club just had a tournament there and out of 16 boats, 0 had a limit. Funny thing is, I don't think that many people are aware of the fish kill. From the comments that I've seen, they just think the lake is fishing tough.
The electroshock boat was out at Washington about a month ago, said the gotba few fish up at the north end but nothing anywhere else. It doesn't seem like the lake and that part of the river is doing very well as far as fishing goes.
I think there was about a 30 boat tournament recently out of Poinsett and only 1 boat out of 30 had a limit. Washington is much better.