Chalk wrote:...I do live in Panama City and there is a decline over here - limit based or maybe oil spill based - dunno....
"Many anglers and guides in the Panhandle, particularly those from Panama City in Bay County through Apalachicola in Franklin County , report seeing declines both in red drum populations and size of fish over the past 2-3 years."
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Water Quality Monitoring at Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve
The Effects of Salinity on the Bay
Estuaries function as transition zones between the salt environment of the sea and the freshwater of the river. Salinity fluctuation in these dynamic environments has been shown to be a dominant feature of estuaries and to a great extent, has helped determine the type and distribution of organisms found in these systems. A complex suite of factors including; local rainfall, river flow, tides, winds and basin configuration, determine salinity in an estuary.
The alteration of a single variable, such as river flow, can significantly affect salinity and therefore, the biota of any estuary. Alterations of any of these patterns, especially increases in salinity, could eliminate the barriers between species and cause significant changes in resident species assemblages in estuaries.
ANERR's monitoring program has compared trends in annual and seasonal salinity patterns. Looking at long-term daily average salinity graphs,
it is clear that all sites show a general increase in salinity throughout the bay, especially during the drought years. This is particularly troubling for the East Bay region, since it is not only the fresher part of the bay, but the most important nursery area in the bay.
This increase in salinity could have pronounced effects on habitats and species within the Apalachicola Bay and could cause shifts in species and distribution. The data being collected in this project is important and is used to assess long-term changes in the bay caused by upstream water diversions, land-use changes, global climate change and man-made alterations. The short-term effects of hurricanes, local storm events, and natural events can also be determined. This information can be utilized to separate natural from man-induced changes.
There is concern that reduced river flows may actually deliver inadequate amounts of proper dissolved nutrients to the bay, with negative impacts on phytoplankton productivity that is necessary to support food chain in the bay.
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/coastal/s...er_quality.htm
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CAUSE AND EFFECT
Given the on-going "water war" between Alabama, Georgia and Florida and the plight of Apalachicola Bay (where the oyster industry has been virtually obliterated by reduced river flows due primarily to upstream water diversions) it may well be that there is a decline in red drum populations and size of fish over the past 2-3 years from Panama City to Apalachicola.
If IN FACT such a decline of red drum is occurring from Panama City to Apalachicola Bay, and it is being caused by ecological disruption and imbalance of Apalachicola Bay, then reducing the daily bag limit of red drum as far away from Apalachicola Bay as Perdido Key (to the west) and Hudson (to the south) isn't going to help restore the ecology of Apalachicola Bay or re-build the red drum population in the Panama City to Apalachicola Bay area.
Rather than reduce the red drum daily bag limit throughout the entire NW Zone FWC should impose a red drum "catch and release only" in Bay and Franklin counties.