Fishing Q&A
So. Cal Deep sea fishing, Red Tide? Poison fish?
Now that the "Red tide" is here, how far out would be safe to eat the fish you catch there? Since fish are fish and probably don't stay in the area for long, Should we just not eat any fish caught in Pacific?
Public Comments
- Red tide is a plankton (algae) bloom. The stuff uses up all the oxygen in the water, and dies, and the red color (and characteristic smell) is from the dead plankton. This makes various shellfish in the area toxic (mussels especially), but its only effect on most fish is to drive them out into places where they can breathe. So you're not going to catch a whole lot of fish out of the red tide itself. If you're out on a boat, you'll notice a pretty sharp edge to the red stuff -- so if you fish on out in the clear water, the fish you catch should be fine. (However, the shellfish remain toxic even if the red water flows away.) Though the red tide is natural, the current red tide seems to be early and very strong, which is why it's being written up.
- The fish will normally follow the cold water currents, because the cold water holds more oxygen than the warm water. If the fish have been affected they might be dead or weak near death so chances are fish only where the currents are cool and you'll be better off. Stay away from shell fish they are filter feeders and will absorb the toxins. Normally the Ocean can keeps itself in a state of equilibrium, but since the temperature has risen several degrees in the last couple of years it has a harder time cooling down. We are in for another mass extinction like what happened to the dinosaurs because the amount of toxic gas that is normally held by the cold water will be released causing a lot of things to die off.
