# Flamingo Fish Kill



## Capt Dan Medina (Apr 28, 2008)

I was down in Flamingo yesterday and couldnt believe the mass amounts of dead fish EVERYWHERE within the park. Tons of juvenille snapper, tarpon, ladyfish, pompano, snook, goliaths, etc. It was sad to say the least and we hardly saw any signs of life.....Not even the sheephead spots had fish.... trout flats were empty.... several of the deeper flats with deeper water looked like mine fields and I had to maneuver around the dead carcasses.... did have a porpoise find us and who was very curious, swimming next the the boat eyeing us, and jumping in our wake..... he was playing with us for about 5 minutes before it got bored and swam off...

Water temp was in the mid 50's all day.... Hopefully we get a serious warm up soon.... no pics as i left it in the truck.... not sure i want to remember these tough times either....


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## lemaymiami (Feb 9, 2007)

I just fished Flamingo with clients the last two days... Here's a bit of a different perspective. Yesterday water temp was 50 degrees at the inside boat ramp. That's pretty cold since we'd been in a warming trend for almost four days... We found lots of places early on in Whitewater with water temps in the 48 degree range - very cold for the interior.

Yes we saw dead fish almost everywhere but not in as great a number as I've seen them in the past. Some years ago I ran into Lake Ingraham from the north after a serious cold spell and found 1,000s and 1,000 of fish floating in that shallow area. The good news from my perspective is that 99% of the fish we saw were either ladyfish (the vast majority) or catfish with jacks a distant third. I only saw a few snook, but they were quite large - one was close to 20lbs. We never saw any trout or redfish or goliaths. Maybe the kill wasn't as bad as some I've experienced in the past.... By Friday afternoon we had water temps up to 56 degrees. Today, the temperatures were much higher, almost 54 at the ramp in the morning and up to 61 (one skinny water bay held 64 degree temps) later in the day. Everything's warming nicely.

Now for the fishing... Our best fish yesterday was a 24" redfish on a jig - it was sightfished in very shallow water - only 51 degrees... As cold as Friday was we still caught speckled trout in Whitewater until we got tired of them...

Today it was lots more trout, one small red - and lots of very spooky larger reds up to and over the slot that would follow a fly but not hit it. Our best fish on fly was a 21" trout in Oyster Bay... The last two days were a little slow but there were still plenty of fish - even though today the wind was just howling in the afternoon. As soon as I can get back there I'll be hunting those nice winter reds in Oyster and Whitewater Bays....


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