Fish duck killer cold

Deadly cold surface water apparently did little damage to Lowcountry coastal fish stocks in the recent freeze that caused mass fish kills across Florida.

A lot of fish and other sea life here evidently moved to deeper, relatively warmer water to ride out the weather.

"Obviously, we lost a few, specifically sea trout," said Mel Bell, fisheries management director for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. "But it's not anywhere near what we saw in 2001."

Sample net trawls last week did not find many shrimp, Bell said, suggesting they moved to deeper water. But biologists did expect to see more shrimp than they did.

"It's still too early to tell, but early expectations are for a below average spring," Bell said.

Hundreds of thousands of dead fish, saltwater and freshwater, have floated to the surface in Florida since the frigid cold broke earlier this month.

Fish kills aren't unusual when the temperature dips precipitously.

In the Lowcountry, shrimp, sea trout and other marine life can die off in mass kills when surface water temperatures hover around the mid-40s for any length of time. A fisherman measured temperatures in the low 40s during a recent cold snap.

In the winter of 2000-01, prolonged water temperatures of about 46 degrees destroyed an estimated 97 percent to 99 percent of the shrimp population and shrimpers qualified for federal disaster assistance. It took two seasons for the shrimp to recover fully and five seasons for sea trout to recover.

Florida endured record- setting cold the first two weeks of January, decimating populations of snook, as well as species normally thought to be able to escape the cold by going deep.

In contrast, the Lowcountry fisheries hardly batted a tail. In the heart of the freeze, red drum guide Graham Hegamyer of Southern Tail Charters kept taking out the boat, even though one morning he had to scrape away ice.

"The redfish were 'tailing,' aggressively feeding. They found deeper water and were perfectly happy," Hegamyer said. He also found large schools of mullet, another fish that can be killed in the cold.

Meanwhile, water temperatures have begun to crawl back toward the 50-degree mark. Long-range climate models call for a two- or three-day cold spell this week, but not as severe as the earlier cold, said Mark Malsick of the State Climatology Office.

The history of El Nino winters in the state suggests normal temperatures for the rest of the winter, though a few more blasts of Arctic air aren't out of the question.

"Everything's starting to warm up," Hegamyer said. "It's been a lot nicer."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.