There seems to be no escape.

An unusually durable red tide—this one started in January—has relegated many Gulf fishing guides to the sidelines as algae blooms first decimated the inshore fishery and then wiped out life right down to the rocks along 2,000 square miles of reefs off Tampa Bay that may take years to recover.

On the east coast, toxic blue-green algae fueled by the continuing massive dumping of nutrient-infested chocolate sludge from Lake Okeechobee is bringing with it the expected dead and lesioned fish in the St. Lucie Estuary, just as fishermen and guides would normally be gearing up for the start of snook season on the Treasure Coast.

Add one more death zone to the state’s troubled waters. Fishermen and divers out of Keaton Beach are calling the state’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute’s Fish Kill Hotline (800-636-0511), describing kills starting about 10 miles off the Big Bend. Divers reported dead and dying bottom fish—grouper, hogfish, seabass, amberjack and grunts—in 35 to 80 feet of water. There is no official cause yet, but it is assumed to be red tide related, until now rare in these waters. According to one longtime hook-and-line commercial grouper fisherman, he hadn’t seen such a kill since 1972.

FS