Went To Alligator Alley

[Superlaz]

Im seeing PBass In Dade, but not smaller than 8"....

 

[CichlidPharmer]

Im seeing PBass In Dade, but not smaller than 8"....

Look no fu(a)rther. Got them from 2" to 5" in three tanks.

And I saw a 6" in the lake.

 

[Louie]

My Grandpa sent me an article from a fishing magazine in Punta Gorda, Florida, where he migrates for the winter. One of the authors of the magazine headed out into Charlotte Harbor and basically said there were so many dead fish floating that you could walk on the water. Everything from Snook, to Sea Catfish (which really don't even mind the cold, I guess they were shocked by the snap) and even a large Goliath Grouper. Very disheartening to hear. In early April I will go down for a week and a half, and we go right on a canal that empties into Charlotte Harbor, which is 8 minutes by boat at trolling speed from the strech of canal in my Grandparents' yard. I hope it has at least rebounded by then. I spend the whole vacation fishing, and the part I look foreward to most is Shark and Stingray fishing in Charlotte Harbor. This cold snap is really a downer

Yep my father in law said same thing . Lots of dead marine fish esp redfish but others with in 1/2 mile from shore.

I am surprised that the ocean of all places would cool down enough to kill fish or that at least fish would go deeper .

 

[Louie]

Speaking of talapia and as I mentioned before, the lake that I fish at didn't suffer a fish kill (however some were in ill health). My swimming pool on the other hand lost a bunch of talapia. Everything else has faired well. I have some blue catfish, bullhead catfish, bluegills, specs and other panfish, and mosquito fish and wild mollys.

My water hyacinths and water lettuce took a beating but they have done fairly well considering what they went through.

My plants also look burned by the cold . How deep is the pool that you keep them in?

 

[Louie]

Anyway, they say that the Cuban Anoles eat the baby Greens, so that is why the Green populations are so low now.

Yea I heard that as well, also the curly tails that are here now are eating both.[/QUOTE]


The curly tails here are weird lizards. A colony is found right in the middle a parking lot . None here but by the huge cement shopping center burning hot parking lot is where I see them.

There are tree's planted in those 3 foot diameter typical parking lot areas but as a whole right in the middle of the cement in 100 degrees they seem happy scampering around.

 

[Louie]

Lots of salt, mostly. I couldn't resist.

Pretty much anything that you'd find in the intercoatal, you will find in the Indian & Banana Rivers. Some favorites growing up were blue crab and shrimp. We had sea horses in our canal but I think those days are over. There are still pipefish (close cousins to sea horses) in there. Redfish and specled trout are among the top game fish. Blue and channel cats are common bottom feeders. Atlantic stingrays are everywhere (caught a huge one as a kid that was about four feet across). There are puffers of every kind too. The list goes on and on (brings back tons of memories though).


I'm drawing a blank fish-wise. As a kid, Green Anoles were everywhere and you never saw any Cubans. Now the Cubans are everywhere...and there is this little brown lizzard... (trying to make a joke). Anyway, they say that the Cuban Anoles eat the baby Greens, so that is why the Green populations are so low now.

Sea horses are nice in NY by the filthy coney island beach they catch them during mid/late summer by the piers.

They say they come via summer currents. its legal to catch them because they die come Winter.

 

[Louie]

They dine exclusively on Cichlid Gold floating pellets....and yes it could take awhile for the shallow canals to get "restocked".



Yepp! Collected them to save the very nice looking heavily speckled parents from being caught. They spawned on a rock very visible from shore and easy targets for the locals.



...and...if you try to understand his location, you would realize that he's in the Northern fringes of South Florida which gets much colder that Miami-Dade County and the devastation at his location is more severe.

Nice I didnt think they would take anything but live food. We get breeding pairs here also and in certain canals they are safe only because out of the way and no one knows the canals.

In regular frequently fished canals both adult pairs are removed and kept leaving the eggs to die/eaten.

 

[Ash]

I am not reading all of this...

as for pbass replacing tarpon... they can eat the pbass. Ok so the Pbass may be able to eat the fry of the tarpon... but the tarpon grow faster and bigger and more then likely will wipe out more pbass fry then the pbass will tarpon fry.

I ve done a lot of studying in school lately on global change, shifting species and invasives. Should invasives be controlled... yes. Is there anything you can do to irradicate them... no. As for them in our ecosystem... yes when they are established they may not be native but they do become part of our ecosystem, they are using, they are living in it, the become apart of it. It happens.

An example is Ciona and Botrylloides, Ciona was an invasive and settled and was in a spot for so long, it basically became a native. Then all the sudden Botryllodies comes a long as an invasive and dispalces the 'native - invasive' Ciona as it has better spawning techniques. One spawns on an internal time clock, its not triggered. The other one spawning is triggered by temperature - making it a better able to compete as it's young will settle first, taking up that area so that the other can't settle or has a harder time finding space. There is always an invasive that will displace an invasive that displaced a native... and it goes on. There are tons of species that were probably not native to FL at one point in time that invaded and are now native. What you see right now or when you grew up is not the natural ecosystem that has always been here. What fish you see here now, how do you know those are the species that were here 1,000 or 100,000 years ago...? What determines what "native" species it is that you want to perserve? You want to perserve the orignall ecosystem, but what we had as an ecosystem when we all were growing up (or even now) is not exactly the originally ecosystem that say someone 200 years ago grew up with. This is one of the reasons conservation can be difficult. Nothin today is as it was many years ago and in years to come there will be new fish and fish lost - that is how it is. Global climate change is also going to eventually be a factor. The species at the lowest lattitude is where the most stress will be caused, this will cause a shift in species who move pole-ward and have geographic shifts as well as shifts in pheneology (such as spawning). This will also cause other species to displace one another.

This almost reminds me of the whole "I hate bowfin because they eat bass eggs.." well the bowfin are still here and so are the bass.....

I have been to Miami quite a few times and been fishing. When I can I try to learn about what is going on down there. It doesnt seem like to many of the invasive species are causing that great of an impact down there. Snake heads - yes they wiped out a few small ponds/lakes. Oscars...they have been in lake okeechobee for who knows how long and are doing fine with the natives. The vast majority of the invasive species of today that are here were government released. The best thing you can do is try to keep the situation under control, irradication wouldn't be a good option as it will never happen and the water ways connect together and that would be determental to the native species as well (like if you tried irradication with chemicals). I would be more concerned with some of the land invasives or lion fish, who have no natural predators.

 

[Louie]

I am not reading all of this...

as for pbass replacing tarpon... they can eat the pbass. Ok so the Pbass may be able to eat the fry of the tarpon... but the tarpon grow faster and bigger and more then likely will wipe out more pbass fry then the pbass will tarpon fry.

I ve done a lot of studying in school lately on global change, shifting species and invasives. Should invasives be controlled... yes. Is there anything you can do to irradicate them... no. As for them in our ecosystem... yes when they are established they may not be native but they do become part of our ecosystem, they are using, they are living in it, the become apart of it. It happens.

An example is Ciona and Botrylloides, Ciona was an invasive and settled and was in a spot for so long, it basically became a native. Then all the sudden Botryllodies comes a long as an invasive and dispalces the 'native - invasive' Ciona as it has better spawning techniques. One spawns on an internal time clock, its not triggered. The other one spawning is triggered by temperature - making it a better able to compete as it's young will settle first, taking up that area so that the other can't settle or has a harder time finding space. There is always an invasive that will displace an invasive that displaced a native... and it goes on. There are tons of species that were probably not native to FL at one point in time that invaded and are now native. What you see right now or when you grew up is not the natural ecosystem that has always been here. What fish you see here now, how do you know those are the species that were here 1,000 or 100,000 years ago...? What determines what "native" species it is that you want to perserve? You want to perserve the orignall ecosystem, but what we had as an ecosystem when we all were growing up (or even now) is not exactly the originally ecosystem that say someone 200 years ago grew up with. This is one of the reasons conservation can be difficult. Nothin today is as it was many years ago and in years to come there will be new fish and fish lost - that is how it is. Global climate change is also going to eventually be a factor. The species at the lowest lattitude is where the most stress will be caused, this will cause a shift in species who move pole-ward and have geographic shifts as well as shifts in pheneology (such as spawning). This will also cause other species to displace one another.

This almost reminds me of the whole "I hate bowfin because they eat bass eggs.." well the bowfin are still here and so are the bass.....

I have been to Miami quite a few times and been fishing. When I can I try to learn about what is going on down there. It doesnt seem like to many of the invasive species are causing that great of an impact down there. Snake heads - yes they wiped out a few small ponds/lakes. Oscars...they have been in lake okeechobee for who knows how long and are doing fine with the natives. The vast majority of the invasive species of today that are here were government released. The best thing you can do is try to keep the situation under control, irradication wouldn't be a good option as it will never happen and the water ways connect together and that would be determental to the native species as well (like if you tried irradication with chemicals). I would be more concerned with some of the land invasives or lion fish, who have no natural predators.

Good reading IMO the ultimate killer which I have seen in 3 yrs living here . Which just devour natives has been the bulldozer and cement mixer.

They are in constant move in S.Florida esp Miami and as everyone here will agree regardless whether you dont mind or do mind non natives that w/o wild areas the natives perish.

Marsh areas that house native sunfish become parking lots and forest full of green that house native reptiles become mini malls.

 

[CFLfish]

I am not reading all of this...

as for pbass replacing tarpon... they can eat the pbass. Ok so the Pbass may be able to eat the fry of the tarpon... but the tarpon grow faster and bigger and more then likely will wipe out more pbass fry then the pbass will tarpon fry.

I ve done a lot of studying in school lately on global change, shifting species and invasives. Should invasives be controlled... yes. Is there anything you can do to irradicate them... no. As for them in our ecosystem... yes when they are established they may not be native but they do become part of our ecosystem, they are using, they are living in it, the become apart of it. It happens.

An example is Ciona and Botrylloides, Ciona was an invasive and settled and was in a spot for so long, it basically became a native. Then all the sudden Botryllodies comes a long as an invasive and dispalces the 'native - invasive' Ciona as it has better spawning techniques. One spawns on an internal time clock, its not triggered. The other one spawning is triggered by temperature - making it a better able to compete as it's young will settle first, taking up that area so that the other can't settle or has a harder time finding space. There is always an invasive that will displace an invasive that displaced a native... and it goes on. There are tons of species that were probably not native to FL at one point in time that invaded and are now native. What you see right now or when you grew up is not the natural ecosystem that has always been here. What fish you see here now, how do you know those are the species that were here 1,000 or 100,000 years ago...? What determines what "native" species it is that you want to perserve? You want to perserve the orignall ecosystem, but what we had as an ecosystem when we all were growing up (or even now) is not exactly the originally ecosystem that say someone 200 years ago grew up with. This is one of the reasons conservation can be difficult. Nothin today is as it was many years ago and in years to come there will be new fish and fish lost - that is how it is. Global climate change is also going to eventually be a factor. The species at the lowest lattitude is where the most stress will be caused, this will cause a shift in species who move pole-ward and have geographic shifts as well as shifts in pheneology (such as spawning). This will also cause other species to displace one another.

This almost reminds me of the whole "I hate bowfin because they eat bass eggs.." well the bowfin are still here and so are the bass.....

I have been to Miami quite a few times and been fishing. When I can I try to learn about what is going on down there. It doesnt seem like to many of the invasive species are causing that great of an impact down there. Snake heads - yes they wiped out a few small ponds/lakes. Oscars...they have been in lake okeechobee for who knows how long and are doing fine with the natives. The vast majority of the invasive species of today that are here were government released. The best thing you can do is try to keep the situation under control, irradication wouldn't be a good option as it will never happen and the water ways connect together and that would be determental to the native species as well (like if you tried irradication with chemicals). I would be more concerned with some of the land invasives or lion fish, who have no natural predators.

I'm sorry to inform you that tarpon are very slow growers and take 7-13 years just to reach sexual maturity. So I have know idea were your getting your information from, but its wrong. I also stated in an earlier post, that trying to totally eradicate the tropical fish is unfeasible and unsafe for the environment of south Florida. It's best to let nature run its course from here on out, IMO. You guys around this forum are a different bred than what I'm used to. I've never encountered so many people that think introducing new species to new places is a good thing. But then again this is all just my opinion, I could be dead wrong.