
GALVESTON BAY |
Galveston Bay Texas
is known as one of the best fisheries on the Texas Gulf Coast. The
center point which is 29°34' north latitude and 94°56' west longitude, is part of
Galveston,
Harris and Chambers counties.
Galveston Bay is the largest estuary on the Texas coast and the seventh largest in the United States. It extends thirty
miles south to north and seventeen miles east to west. The bay is seven to nine feet deep. It has a mud bottom and about 600
square miles of surface. Fresh water from the Trinity and the San Jacinto rivers mixes with the tidal salt water from the Gulf
of Mexico through the Houston Ship Channel between Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula.
Galveston Bay has been declared an estuary of national significance by
the Environmental Protection Agency National Estuary Program and the
area surrounding the bay system is bordered by coastal plains and
marshes. The Christmas Bay Coastal Preserve, a shallow embayment located
in its southwestern portion, is a unique high quality subsystem of
estuary that has not yet been greatly altered by human activity. The
preserve is one of the most ecologically productive bays of the
Galveston complex. Important natural resources in Galveston Bay include
finfish, shrimp and blue crab and it is also estimated that seventy-five percent
of the bird species in North America spend some time in Galveston bays.
Red drum and speckled trout are the premier recreational game species of
the bay. Regulations passed to protect redfish and speckled trout
included no commercial sale since 1981, implementation of minimum and
maximum sizes and a daily bag limits for recreational fishermen since 1982. These
species showed increases in first-time spawners and adults after these regulations were
implemented, despite several adverse natural events, including a freeze in 1983, a red
tide in 1986, and two freezes in 1989. On September 13th 2008 Hurricane Ike made landfall directly
over Galveston Island and caused massive damage to Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula.
Galveston Bay once
filled with debris from Ike has since been cleaned and fishing in all of
the Galveston Bay Complex is still outstanding. The Galveston Bay
Complex is still
considered as one of the very best places to fish up and down the Texas Coast.
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