Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerry Zagorski
Got my first boat in the mid 80s and back then the bay was practically a cesspool. Lots of towns without any treatment centers dumping raw sewage in all the rivers leading into the bay, oil spills were common place. Thankfully that changed and the water has improved a lot, so has the fishing.
Interesting to know the channels are not natural and how they effect the fishing.
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I will have to respectfully disagree about the improved fishing Gerry.. I lived right on top of Raritan Bay in the town of Union Beach in the 80's and the amount of fish caught in the bay during those years was staggering.. We didn't have the stripers in the numbers we see today, but masses of weakfish, fluke, blues and flounder made up for it.. I even had good fishing in the bay for blackfish, porgies, kingfish and blowfish if you knew where to go. The water had a lot of life in it, but at times, I will concede there was a LOT of floating garbage during that time frame, which I always thought came from the Fresh Kills landfill across the bay. I don't doubt there were water quality issues i was unaware at the time, but geez, there were so many fish I guess we just weren't thinking along those lines. There was just a ton less pressure on the fish in the bay 30+ years ago as well, and I imagine that played a part in the big numbers we used to see .. bob
