by Capt. James Marko
I’m sure you’ve all heard of the red tide that hit the inside of Boca Grande last month and here’s my thoughts. It was extremely tough for me because I conduct research for Fish and Wildlife on the Goliath Grouper and we had an estimated 100 die from red tide. Warm waters, bacteria build up, and perfect factors is what manifest red tide to become toxic. It sucks the oxygen out of the water and the fish can’t breathe, is a simple way of putting what red tide does to the fishery. Red tide is everywhere and at all times of the year. It’s hard to say what caused this certain bloom to become so toxic in our area, and at the end of the day we can’t control Mother Nature, but we can prevent helping the situation.
One of the things we can do as residents is stop using certain fertilizer to keep our yards green. We have laws during times when you can’t actually fertilize because of runoff. Runoff happens every day here, which causes our waters to be contaminated. I’m not gonna get into the Lake O issues at hand. That’s a whole other issue that won’t be corrected anytime soon in my opinion. But we can start taking action now with our own backyards. Runoff is a serious issue we could all work on without political madness. Now with this all being said, I believe truly the fishery will come back strong and quick. To be honest, I did great at fishing during the red tide it was only in a certain area, but it was extremely toxic wiping out a solid fish population. I had a hard time finding bait and saw a lot of dead fish, but once again I put all my clients on solid and quite a few trophies. We caught a sailfish, some monster Goliath and big sharks. Yes, a sailfish which will never happen again where it happened, but sometimes you’re lucky. If we all do our part with our own yards, these first waves of toxic water when the lake opens will be prevented. The lake is a serious issue, but I can’t stress that we can make a solid change if we all just stop with our local runoff. Our fishery is strong, but it could be one of the strongest in the state. We all love our waters so let’s do our part and really look into what we’re putting into our own canal systems, which leads to our backyard fishing spots. Next month will be about ICAST and all the cool products coming out. Till next time, Tight Lines, Capt. Marko
