Biscayne Lake

DirtySouth · August 2012

Went out today for a little exercise on the bay. Kayak exercising. Went out of BP and headed south. There was hardly any salt in the water. I honestly felt I was yaking on a lake. Did not see any fish, or other signs of marine life.
The canal damns are wide open and flowing. Dumping this much fresh water in the bay is not good at all.

What's going on with all those projects to release water into the Everglades instead of our bays?
Any movement or just more political bullS..t.

In any case, this sucks for the bay and everyone that enjoys fishing it.

Take Care,
Ed

MoganSlaya · August 2012

Agreed......when the locks are open and the freshwater is flowing, it kills all life on the west side!

HialeahAngler · August 2012

this is the reason I'm not kayaking tomorrow.

jjimenez1 · August 2012

HialeahAngler wrote: »

this is the reason I'm not kayaking tomorrow.

Agreed. North Bay has been the same every afternoon.

DirtySouth · August 2012

A really good read on this subject, The Swamp by Michael Grunwald. It gives you a complete history of what the everglades once was to, where we are now. I read it and was completely enlightened. I never realized how much I did not know. This book gives you the names, dates, and all the other details about how we have destroyed the everglades. Book moves pretty fast too, keeps the information coming.

Read it, you will have a different view of our everglades.
Ed

mangohunter11 · September 2012

The bay is a total loss at the moment... I poled a distance on the yak recently and I felt like I was in Choko or Hells Bay with all the red tannic water.... I have seen the mass extintion of great producing grass flats that have been reduced to pure mud. Not good news IMO... No fish in sight... No bones,reds,sharks,jacks, even cudas are freaking gone.

lemaymiami · September 2012

Yes, the results after heavy rains when all that freshwater is released aren't pretty (and Grunwald's book is must reading for anyone that lives down here in "paradise") but remember that without flood control we probably couldn't live here.... Like many, many people my house sits on land that used to be Everglades (the 'Glades actually went all the way to downtown Miami 100 years ago...). Like most I'm not happy about the slow pace of Everglades restoration - but none of that would have much affect at all when they start dumping the canals that drain into Biscayne Bay... Your real worry is how water is managed north between the northern boundary of the Park and that big Lake (Okeechobee....).

Now for some practical stuff. When rain turns areas fresh if you want to find the fish you have to find the salt.... and there are times when that means darned nearly all the way to the oceanside keys.... On the Gulf side of the 'Glades I was taught some years ago that the transition line between fresh and salt during flood season is one of the places where the fish will be... The easiest way to find it is to keep dipping your hand in the water and just tasting it for salt - the moment you no longer taste salt in any river - turn around, run a half mile downstream and you should find the salt and the fish to go with it..... There are days this time of year when you can kill an entire baitwell full of whitebaits if you don't check the water at a river mouth.....

By the way if you think Biscayne Bay has problems when it's flood season you should be glad you're not up around Stuart where continuous dumping of freshwater (heavily contaminated with fertilizer) is being drained out of Lake Okeechobee - and it goes on for days....

HialeahAngler · September 2012

mangohunter11 wrote: »

The bay is a total loss at the moment... I poled a distance on the yak recently and I felt like I was in Choko or Hells Bay with all the red tannic water.... I have seen the mass extintion of great producing grass flats that have been reduced to pure mud. Not good news IMO... No fish in sight... No bones,reds,sharks,jacks, even cudas are freaking gone.

I have to agree. Even the cuda are on a big decline. used to be able to toss some topwater at them, and they had good size. now there's just a few babies around.

lemaymiami · September 2012

Hialeah... the decline in the 'cuda population is a different deal entirely - and there's a different cause. In the last 25 years there's actually been an underground commercial fishery for 'cudas. The guys doing it are very small time. 'Cudas to eat, 'cudas for market... I've even known one or two fsih markets that cheerfully sold "silver snapper". You can't do that sort of stuff without consequences I'm afraid. Wish it weren't so but there's a reason I fish in the Everglades almost exclusively these past years. What's been happening to 'cudas is just a part of the mistakes we've made. Allowing commercial shrimping in Biscayne Bay is an even bigger problem but I've never been able to get any action on it.

If we started treating the Bay better you'd see a dramatic comeback but I'm not holding my breath...

abovebored · September 2012

Once while snook fishing in south biscayne after a heavy rain I witnessed a displaced alligator swimming around in the bay.

HialeahAngler · September 2012

lemaymiami wrote: »

Hialeah... the decline in the 'cuda population is a different deal entirely - and there's a different cause. In the last 25 years there's actually been an underground commercial fishery for 'cudas. The guys doing it are very small time. 'Cudas to eat, 'cudas for market... I've even known one or two fsih markets that cheerfully sold "silver snapper". You can't do that sort of stuff without consequences I'm afraid. Wish it weren't so but there's a reason I fish in the Everglades almost exclusively these past years. What's been happening to 'cudas is just a part of the mistakes we've made. Allowing commercial shrimping in Biscayne Bay is an even bigger problem but I've never been able to get any action on it.

If we started treating the Bay better you'd see a dramatic comeback but I'm not holding my breath...

that's nutz but totally believable. BBay at 79th st for example. the 1st island just south of the marina used to hold tons of cudas. we would pass by on the way home or make a cheap trip out of it with topwaters. now it's almost a ghost town. even further south closer to Blackpoint I noticed the same thing. If they put restrictions on cuda, maybe they can keep this from happening; instead of considering them a trash fish.

abovebored · September 2012

maybe they can keep this from happening; instead of considering them a trash fish.[/QUOTE]

Good point. In all reality cudas truly are the #1 underrated sports fish in south fl. in terms of bang for the buck (explosive hits, fast action, ease of accessibility, eagerness to bite artificials, etc). Its easy to take them for granted, or consider them a nuisance, until they gone. Maybe they all wised up and are camped out under the yellowtail boats.

HialeahAngler · September 2012

abovebored wrote: »

maybe they can keep this from happening; instead of considering them a trash fish.

Good point. In all reality cudas truly are the #1 underrated sports fish in south fl. in terms of bang for the buck (explosive hits, fast action, ease of accessibility, eagerness to bite artificials, etc). Its easy to take them for granted, or consider them a nuisance, until they gone. Maybe they all wised up and are camped out under the yellowtail boats.[/QUOTE]

not too mention they keep the flats clean, and the bait moving.

DirtySouth · September 2012

Bob, I agree. The pace that Everglades restoration is going, is absolutely ridiculous. IMHO it just boils down to greed. Big sugar needs to move on and let the Everglades heal itself. Without a true south flow from the Lake things will never improve. Politicians have no backbone to stand up and fight for what is right, as long as they are contributing to their reelection campaign they will vote how they are told to vote.
Where's the outrage?
I know Florida Sportsman has done a few articles documenting the slow pace of restoration, but they need to amp it up, just like they did to get the gill nets banned. Get a constitutional amendment that gets things moving. I don't know but as long as we stand by and watch, the Glades continues to die and so does everything that is associated with it, i.e Biscayne Bay, Indian River lagoon, Caloosahatchee river and surrounding areas. Where's our hero?
Take Care,
Ed

lemaymiami · September 2012

Unfortunately greed is only a part of the picture that I see. Add to it "protecting your turf", and lots of players with conficting agendas (on every side of the equation...). If any one of the various parties (and it would take some time and a cold beer to cite all the players) has a problem with any portion of any proposed action.... quick get your lawyer and tie things up for another few years. I wish that all of the various players -and there are really different areas of the state with conflicting agendas (even the "good guys" disagree with each other...).

I've watched this process closely (and even spoken up occasionally... ) since the late seventies. In the early years we lost every conservation fight hands down - ultimately that was what finally lead to the net ban amendment (but that's another story). My best hope is that someone at the State level will take a strong hand but that would mean actually committing funds (which no one has...). My guess is that the day I'm no longer around we'll still be arguing about what to do....

Wish it weren't so, and highly recommend THE SWAMP by Michael Grunwald for anyone wanting to learn a bit more about man's dealings with the Everglades over the last four hundred years. It will open your eyes a bit. The rest is up to us.

DirtySouth · September 2012

I haven't been out in the bay since I last posted here. But I can conclude with all this rain, that the bay is still pretty full of fresh water. I rode my bike down by Princeton Canal and the dam there was wide open. Rode down to the Airbase canal and same thing.
Bob, totally agree, wow, could only imagine how good the fishing would be after a few years, if commercial shrimping would be outlawed in the bay. Those rollers on the bottom just take everything. If only Biscayne National park would be treated like Everglades National Park.
Don't get it....
Ed

Biscayne Lake

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