Thankfully this week’s freeze was only a few days, but back in 1983 the Texas coast had a freeze for 7 consecutive days which caused a massive fish kill, the largest on record for the state of Texas. When water temperature drops below about 45 degrees and remains there for a day or so, fish like spotted seatrout, redfish, black drum, sheepshead and a lot of other smaller fish begin seeing their cold-blooded metabolism slow too low to keep them alive. The final estimate from Texas Parks and Wildlife coastal fisheries was that at least 20 million marine creatures perished and at least 14 million finfish from the freeze in 1983. This photo from December 25th 1983 was donated by Stacy Holcomb and was taken in Timbercove on Taylor Lake, just about a mile south of Armand Bayou Nature Centers boundary of preserved land on the other side of Red Bluff. Armand Bayou Nature Center’s boundary also has part of Taylor bayou that is just north of Taylor Lake.
