RC: No. Louis Darna says he has heard of a red tide way back
then. But I think that was just a freeze, and it froze a
lot of fish.
E: I have heard from a couple of different sources that between
1918 and 1920, on the Placida side over in Bulls Bay and
Charlotte Harbor on this side, they had something called
poison water, and the fish were floating, wiggling, and
dying all over the surface. It could have been anything.
Somebody could have dropped something in the water. It
could have been real localized. But there had not been a
lot of red tides. The one in 1948 was the first that you
remember?
RC: It is the first that I remember.
E: And there have been quite a few since then.
RC: Boy, when that one hit, that was something. I had the
Faithful I then, and I would go out in this bayou, and dead
fish would just plow off of both sides of the boat.
Millions of pounds.
E: More than any commercial fishermen could catch?
RC: It was unbelievable.
E: What kind of fish were they?
RC: All kinds.
E: Bottom fish?
RC: Bottom fish, catfish, sharks, everything.
E: Sharks, too.
RC: Everything. [They were] all along the boat. I had to run
slow so that I would not bump them too hard.
E: How about the shrimp and crab?
RC: Yes, a lot of them, too.
E: I heard that they crawled right out of the water on the
beach.
RC: Yes, I heard they did that, too.
E: Did anyone get sick from eating the shellfish, the first
time it happened?
20