The Barnegate Bay Before and After............. Confused !!!!!!!!!

[kayak1]

Hey Guy's......

I was reading the Asbury Park Press today and came accross the article on jelly fish in the Barnegate Bay....Confused to say the least.

I have lived on the Barnegate Bay for 47 year's and have been fishing,swimming and boating the entire time.But the bay has changed through those year's I would agree......I don't ever remember as a kid dealing with jelly fish like I do today.

Here is where I get confused about who is really looking after my backyard and the health of the warter of come to love......Back in the 70's and 80's when the eel grass was lush and the small bait fish and crab's had all the cover they wanted to hide and reproduce.....We also had a great flow of water...With a real high/low tide and a lower water tempeture in the summer becuse of the change of water from the ocean.

If anyone can remember fishing A-21 at Island Beach state Park back before the 1990's....That area was the best for everything....Ton's of bait fish....Crab's running all over the bottom....The place was teaming with life and the upper bay was doing the same....NO JELLY FISH.

The army Corp Of Engineers then came in and found that the tide was way to strong.....And wanted to slow things down....So they came up with an Idea to place a huge sock like thing filled with sand along the North side of the Barnegate Inlet....The results worked great,and they cut off the flow of fresh ocean water getting into the rest of the bay.....That one area has changed...But so did the entire Bay.

The article in the press today, talks about Plastic docks and wood used to build dock's...The article also talk's about using flumes and underground pipes to flush the bay with ocean water.....

Well we had a great flow of ocean water for a hundred year's when the bay was left alone.....But we had to change all that and stop the flow of fresh ocean water that came in from both the Barnegate Inlet and Manasquan Inlet every day with the change of tides and made the water heat up more each summer.

So.....You can see why I'm Confused!!!!!

Kayak 1

 

[FishOn]

I think the flow they were trying to reduce was causing problems with shoaling in the inlet so reducing the flow was a permanent fix. I wish there was an inlet at the mouth of the toms river like there use to be way back. That would alleviate alot of the problems with flushing and allow awesome access for me!  I grew up in bayville. I have seen the changes. We use to catch weakfish snappers/cocktails fluke perch and the occasional striper in the lagoons. Now we can't even catch a damn killi. The bay is in big trouble. Hopefully something is done. Reducing nitrogen and phosphorus input is a good start but the entire ecosystem has gone eutrophic.

[Luna Sea 5]

im down there now and in the lagoons, it is unreal.  I swear, you see 1000's.  My son got stunk by one this weekend that fell on him when realling up the pots.