Should fishing be allowed in mangrove estuaries?

[DavidPT40]

I was thumbing through the latest edition of National Geographic a few minutes ago, and saw an interesting picture of a lemon shark pup swimming through a mangrove estuary in the Bahamas. The pictures caption told about how sharks and other growing fish gorge themselves on the plentiful food there.

However, when I went to Bonita Springs FL a while back, I visited a mangrove estuary. People were fishing this place dry. A wooden board listed all the types of fish that could be caught in this modestly sized bay, it included red snapper, various types of grouper, and other assortments of fish.

Wouldn't fishing in a place like a mangrove estuary severely hurt fish populations? After all, fish live in the estuaries to escape predation until they are large enough to move out to sea. I was just thinking that allowing fishing there is very counter-productive.

Thoughts?

 

[DennisS]

I like fishing in the mangroves. it's where the fish are. It's not all juveniles, some big snook are in there. There are size limits and bag limits. Development for all the people moving into florida destroys a lot of mangroves areas. Fishing is minor in comparison.

 

[CBulla]

Dennis is square on here with the development. I've grown up fishing Bonita through Pine Island Sound areas (Pine Island is north, all connected mangrove estuary) and the more development we've had the worse its become. I've got fishing holes back in the mangrove that are no where near as fun now as they were 15...10 years ago. Since the SWFL BOOM of building and development backwaters fishing has gone to Hades in a hand basket and the add insult to injury is the Red Tide thats been plaguing the area every summer for the last 6 years now.

Ruin an eco system for some sea walls and golf courses...

 

[matts1w]

If there is any one group of people that protect the mangroves, estuaries, and fish populations, it is recreational fishermen. If truly worried about depleted fish stocks and our backwaters look at the commerical fishing industry, construction/real estate industry, and agricultural industry. These are the culprits destroying the mangroves and bays.

-Matt
Recreational Fisherman
Estero Bay Estuary Resident

 

[DavidPT40]

Ok heres what I am seeing here. The recreational fishermen are all chiming in and saying "Its not us causing the depletion of fish populations, its habitat destruction elsewhere." How is habitat destruction elsewhere in Florida causing progressively worse fishing in a mangrove estuary that has been protected? Even Cbulla himself said the same fishing hole he has fished for 15 years is producing less and less fish each year.

I, as a recreational inland fisherman, have seen a lake whos habitat has been improved, still produce less and less fish each year due to overfishing. The lake in particular is in Louisville KY (Lake McNeely). Water quality, habitat, and invasive species were all improved, but overfishing still drove down fish populations.

Heres some basic fishing mortality statistics.

-Fish that are hooked in the mouth have a 2% mortality rate (unless hooked in the eye)
-Fish that are gut hooked have over a 50% mortality rate
-Fish that people keep of course have a 100% mortality rate

For freshwater fish, its been found that even pulling the mature fish off its nest of eggs for a few minutes (such as catching a fish) allows other fish to come in and eat all the eggs.

I love to fish. And I would more than support fishing in mangrove estuaries if I could find some evidence that fish populations could still grow even in the presence of fishing there.

 

[matts1w]

I do not even know where to start- but you might want to do some research concerning freshwater discharge from Lake Okeechobee, fertilizers, Everglades restoration, red tide, fertilizers in the Caloosahatchee River, etc...

It is not the clearcutting of Mangroves killing the Estuaries, it is massive freshwater dumps coming down the river that are loaded with fertilizers. Rich people need their green lawns and golf courses ya know.... The agricultural stuff in the middle of the state is loading their crops with fertilizers. It all washes into our eustraries causing massive growths that kill ecosystems.

Cbulla knows far mare than I do.

Ok heres what I am seeing here. The recreational fishermen are all chiming in and saying "Its not us causing the depletion of fish populations, its habitat destruction elsewhere." How is habitat destruction elsewhere in Florida causing progressively worse fishing in a mangrove estuary that has been protected? Even Cbulla himself said the same fishing hole he has fished for 15 years is producing less and less fish each year.

I, as a recreational inland fisherman, have seen a lake whos habitat has been improved, still produce less and less fish each year due to overfishing. The lake in particular is in Louisville KY (Lake McNeely). Water quality, habitat, and invasive species were all improved, but overfishing still drove down fish populations.

Heres some basic fishing mortality statistics.

-Fish that are hooked in the mouth have a 2% mortality rate (unless hooked in the eye)
-Fish that are gut hooked have over a 50% mortality rate
-Fish that people keep of course have a 100% mortality rate

For freshwater fish, its been found that even pulling the mature fish off its nest of eggs for a few minutes (such as catching a fish) allows other fish to come in and eat all the eggs.

I love to fish. And I would more than support fishing in mangrove estuaries if I could find some evidence that fish populations could still grow even in the presence of fishing there.

 

[CBulla]

Dude - any good fisherman knows you don't go back to the same spot over and over and over again. Places where I could literally watch red fish and snook zipping across the flats and little holes under the mangroves where mangrove snapper were stacked and thick are now devoid of life. Even the mullet, no longer able to be gill netted, only by hand thrown cast nets, are down considerably.

Sea walls remove the estuary areas along the edge of the larger islands. That area provides food, shelter, and habitat for the smaller fish to grow up. It provides nesting to the birds that eat those little fish to. There is a cycle there that even the birds excrement contributes to.

What has replaced that soft sheltered habitat is hard, flat sea walls and concrete docks bordered in high maintenance feterlizer dependant grass.

Believe me when folks like Matt and I are saying that the issue isn't the fishermen, its not.. they've moved on because the fishing isn't there anymore and what fish are left are just not worth putting under stress.

The Mangroves are not a lake in KY my friend.. similar idea of ecosystem, but on a much more complex scale!

 

[Patty]

Dude - any good fisherman knows you don't go back to the same spot over and over and over again.

But it doesn't take many bad fishermen to wreck it for the good ones.

 

[CBulla]

I can guarantee you, its not locals fishing the waters to this degree. In fact, it would take thousands of fisherman to do this damage and the bays don't have this amount of fishing going on, its all out front side. Very little fishing happens in the estuaries because its very shallow and the majority of the boats on the water hit bottom almost immediately upon exiting the channel.

This is sort of like arm chair quarterbacking - all sorts of answers coming from places and people who aren't even close to or have any experience with the issue. Matt has laid the ground work for what reading needs to be read before even coming to grips with trying to contrive an answer to this problem.

 

[matts1w]

David-

It is great you care about our estuaries and bays, but you are just not right about fishing pressure. You are talking about where I live everyday, not some place I have visited on vacation. I love Estero Bay, and if the answer simply was STOP FISHING, I would be the first in line to shut it down. This is the biggest issue in the town where I live (Fort Myers Beach) as the salt water is turning fresh. I do not pretend to know about issues affecting some lake in Kentucky or Australia for that matter, but we locals do know this. Do some reading about the issues affecting water in the Gulf between Marco Island and Tampa Bay. It will tick you off, but the source of your anger wont be a few skinny water anglers.