Just wishing for spring and was wondering what everyone thought of last years croaker kill. How do ya'll think it will effect this years croaker fishing.

I don't know what it was that were killing the fish and I'm not sure the scientist know either. Hopefully the ecosystem has had a chance to purge itself and eliminate the harmful crap that killed the croaker last year. I hope things work out because I enjoy the pullage of a nice size croaker.

I heard they are even thinking about putting size and bag restrictions on them. Good. Maybe the poor old croaker will get a little respect. The only thing that sucks is the 4"-6" ones make great live bait.

Last hear while i was Croaker/flounder fishing i would toss a smaller croaker back out on a fish finder rig. Several times the rod would jump and i would find a head left on the hook. Don't know what was doing it but it is nice to wonder.

There was a lot of talk at the time about thermal changes in the currents having as a possible cause. Although croaker are one of the hardier fish, even they can only take so much of a rapid change in water temp. That could also explain the ripple effect down to Florida if it affected the Stream

If it was mostly due to a thermal effect then I would of expected more species of fish to have been effected. The fact the fish kills were isolated to a single species, croakers, leads me to suspect a pathogen. Now the thermal changes may have played a role and most likely multipe factors were involved. I am interested to hear more about the bacteria that was isolated, I believe from the gill areas of the fish. I have some friends at VIMS and I'll check to see if they have heard anything.

Here is a link that discusses the fish kill:

http://www.vims.edu/newsmedia/crest.html

Maybe the cold water stressed the croaker causing lower than normal resistance to the bacteria.Rapid temperature change,low salintiy and pollution all together create an ugly movie.

Exactly. It is difficult to find one smoking gun in cases like these but I'm sure that poor water quality and the temp change played a large role. Hopefully these croaker kills will not become a regular occurance.