Mississippi Gulf Fishing Banks, Inc.

Activity Report for the Period

June 9 thru July 14, 2016

Activity Summary

During this period there was 1 Construction Trip and 4 trips made to deploy USM Sensors. MGFB, working cooperatively on a USM/GCRL project headed up by Dr. Scott Milroy, a dozen data loggers were deployed in the Gulf to measure Dissolved Oxygen, Temperature, and Salinity, every 15 minutes. Hopefully the information will yield insight into hypoxia conditions and sources plaguing Mississippi’s Artificial Reefs. On June 11, Recording Sensors were deployed on FH-13 and FH-7. On June 12, one was deployed on FH-10. On June 15, two more units were deployed on FH-3 & FH-14 following the deployment of 62 Juvenile Fish Habitats (Fish Dice) in FH-3. On June 22, a trip was made to deploy the remaining 7 units in FH-2, FH-1, FH-6, FH-4, FH-12, FH-8, and Cat Island. See the Deployment Web Page.

160615 “Fish Dice” Deployments

The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (MDMR) designed and deployed 160 Juvenile Fish Habitat units last month and this month they deployed 62 more units in FH-3. Reefmakers of Orange Beach, Alabama performed the work at the direction of the MDMR. See last month’s report for more details on the design. ID 579F3 is the Eco-Reef.

FH-3 Fish Dice Gallery FH-3 Deployment Video FH-14 Deployment Video

Reef IDs and Coords

160615A 30°09.930'N 88°45.062'W 573F3 160615B 30°09.914'N 88°45.034'W 574F3

160615C 30°09.912'N 88°45.038'W 575F3

160615D 30°09.900'N 88°44.987'W 576F3

160615E 30°09.910'N 88°45.008'W 577F3

160615F 30°09.951'N 88°45.000'W 578F3

160615G 30°09.942'N 88°44.963'W 579F3

USM/GCRL Recording Sensors Deployed

MGFB has been working cooperatively with a USM/GCRL project headed up by Dr. Scott Milroy. A dozen data loggers were deployed in the Gulf to measure Dissolved Oxygen, Temperature, and Salinity, every 15 minutes. Hopefully the data will give insight to mitigate and determine sources of hypoxic (low oxygen) events. The first two recorders were deployed on June 11 in FH-13 and FH-7. The next one was deployed in FH-10 on June 12. A Scuba Regulator malfunctioned and prevented further deployments that day. On June 15, two more units were deployed in FH-3 and FH-14 following the FH-3 Fish Dice Deployments. Also noted on this trip was a large area of dead menhaden that went for miles, possibly due to the menhaden industry. On June 22, the remaining 7 units were deployed taking advantage of some very calm weather. Worth noting was visual hypoxic conditions on FH-3 where not a single fish was observed and the only life seen was a single dead crab. The observations on FH-14 were similar, however some juvenile red snapper were seen upon first encountering the structure. Problems finding Bay Balls in FH-8 led to deploying the unit on Concrete instead. Also, the Dive Computer failed late on June 22 preventing retrieval of temp data.

The table below details the deployments.

http://mgfb.org/                                                          Email Author: MarkPrimo@primofish.com