El Nina and fishing

El Nina and fishing

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Interesting description of the effects of El Nino on fish. David Sparks with Rob Maxey, an Oregon fisherman. Speaker2: Salmon fishing was on track for a good year this year. They're predicting over a million Coho, although the Chinook run is not as good as it could be. But there's fish. There's a lot of fish. The ocean conditions take care of everything. We've got a big El Nino this year and it's really affected our weather. Most of the country is burning up and the Pacific Northwest is still raining. We've had the wettest year on record after last year, having the driest year on record. It's all about ocean conditions, a degree or two, and the temperature makes a huge difference. It's all mixed. The warmer water brings a lot of the exotics up tuna. And we're even catching a marlin or two off the Oregon coast for the last couple of years. It keeps changing. You've just got to adapt with everything else. Speaker1: Wow. I knew about the El Nino and the El Nino causing weather patterns, but I did not know that it influenced fish migrating patterns. Speaker2: It's huge because the feed in the water, whether we've got an upwelling or not, makes a big difference. When you have a big upwelling with the cold waters of the El Nino, then it creates these hypoxic zones that are no oxygen. But then once it has had time to get in the surface there, then you have a big algae or a plankton bloom, which then brings everything else, the krill and everything goes with it. And so it's kind of a back and forth thing. Speaker1: Yeah, that's fishing.
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