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Fish, wildlife return to St. Sebastian River after 3 years of dredging - TC Palm Page 3 of 4 <br />The resulting dead fish statewide were too numerous to count, but estimates in the <br />c lagoon's Treasure Coast section were in the hundreds of thousands, the Florida Fish <br />and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported. <br />"Considering only four years ago we lost a lot of fish to a big freeze, the number of <br />snook, jacks and tarpon we're seeing in the river now is pretty impressive," said Capt. <br />Gus Brugger, a Sebastian fishing guide. "The water isn't mucky at all; it's just kind of <br />brown from all the tannins in the water, but that's natural." <br />The dredging also made navigating the river easier, Brugger said. <br />Capt. Mike Peppe, a Sebastian fishing guide on the river for about 25 years, said the <br />fishing "is as good as I've seen it in the last 15 to 20 years." Peppe said he has caught <br />15 to 20 different species of fish in the river over the last year. <br />"I can catch six or seven types of fish without really thinking about it," he said. "The <br />,. =---- water clarity is good if there hasn't been a lot of rain draining stuff into the river. If <br />there's no rain, I can see to the bottom. I can see bass on their beds. It's just a <br />wonderful place to go look around." <br />The manatee population is "super strong" and "plenty of dolphin are coming in," <br />Peppe said. "They wouldn't be there if there was a water quality problem." <br />It's difficult to impossible to get a good manatee count in the river, according to Katie <br />Tripp, science and conservation director at the Save the Manatee Club. Manatees <br />tend to congregate in the river in summer, but aerial counts are done in winter when <br />manatees congregate around warm springs and power plant discharges. <br />STOP IT, DON'T SCRAPE IT <br />Despite the dredging's seeming success, the goal should be ending the source of muck <br />rather than periodically scraping it off the river bottom, said Grant Gilmore, lead <br />scientist at Estuarine, Coastal and Ocean Science in Vero Beach. <br />http://www.tcpalm.com/franchise/indian-river-lagoon/fish-wildlife-return-to-st-sebastian-... 11/13/2014 <br />