Big fish carcasses found floating near Cat Island, fisherman reports

Kyle Johnson was fishing with Troy Helwig on Saturday when they came upon more than a dozen large fish floating in the tide line about a mile south of Cat Island.

He photographed three of the tarpon, one of them estimated to weigh 80 pounds, at about noon Saturday.

“There were jack cravelle as far as we could see,” Johnson told the Sun Herald. “It was pretty disgusting.”

On his Facebook page, he said, “It’s sad that the biggest tarpon that I have ever seen in person were all dead.”

The jack cravelle he estimated at 20 to 40 pounds each.

“From what we could tell, none of these fish had bite marks from sharks,” he said. “Judging from their state, I would guess they had been dead for one or two days.”

What he thought was odd was that the only dead fish were big. If it were an algae bloom or something else, there would have been smaller fish dead too, he said.

He said he didn’t see a mullet or any smaller bait fish.

He said they ran from Cat Island to Louisiana waters and did not see any small dead fish.

He said he knows they have tarpon running through the area, he’s seen them dead from pogey boats running their nets, but he’s never seen this many dead together with jack cravelle.

Don Abrams, who saw Johnson’s post on Facebook, told the Sun Herald the Coast used to be a hotspot for tarpon fishing until it declined.

“In the past few years, tarpon sightings have become more and more numerous and research at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory suggests that they may be reproducing here,” Abrams said. “It’s very disappointing that these adult fish were killed, and unusual that so many would be affected at the same time in such a small area. I think it’s worth questioning how the fish died and whether the menhaden boats might be involved.”

This story was originally published July 25, 2016 at 3:11 PM with the headline "Big fish carcasses found floating near Cat Island, fisherman reports."