Bunker kills

[hammer4reel]

Been a Lot of bunker dying up in the river .
Weird to see this happening when water is still so cold

[dakota560]

Sad to see and unusual like you said this time of year. If you don't mind me asking, where is that?

[NoLimit]

Did they get caught in the moon low tide?

[AndyS]

Full moon blow out tide ?? What I do not get when I see these photos is where are all the birds ?? I will watch 2 seagulls practically kill each other for some Burger King scraps in some bag at the Shop-Rite parking lot, but give them millions of fresh dead fish, not a bird to be seen, why is that !!! :confused:

[hammer4reel]

Shrewsbury

[MDeSi]

Didn’t see as many but had some wash up back in red bank.

[MattMal88]

Full moon blow out tide ?? What I do not get when I see these photos is where are all the birds ?? I will watch 2 seagulls practically kill each other for some Burger King scraps in some bag at the Shop-Rite parking lot, but give them millions of fresh dead fish, not a bird to be seen, why is that !!! :confused:

Its funny that you say that because I remember fishing shark river inlet 3-4 years ago and there was a huge bunker kill in the river. Millions were washing out of the inlet and I thought the same thing. There were no birds eating them at all. A nice blitz of large blues eventually came in and got on them but even that only lasted maybe an hour. But the entire outgoing tide had millions of dead or almost dead bunker washing out into the ocean. That was a full moon blowout tide when that happened.

[Gumada]

The birds are just plain full, can’t eat another bite....maybe :D

[togzilla]

https://www.nj.com/monmouth/2019/03/thousands-of-dead-fish-wash-up-in-nj-river-bay-area-over-weekend.html

Saw this article in NJ.com that blames the issue on predatory fish like bluefish and stripers chasing the bunker into shallow ares where they exhaust all of the oxygen and die off. I could buy that story if it was May and there were a lot of stripers and bluefish around but not this time of year. Somethings fishy here!

[Billfish715]

Togzilla, You read the article correctly. The only problem is that the reporter
( Jeff Goldman ) misreported the statement by Larry Hajna from the DEP. He said that predatory fish sometimes chase baitfish into the shallows. The reporter failed to mention the word "sometimes". His report made it sound like a fact. Nowhere in the DEP statement did it mention anything about why the bunker were in the shallow water. It is an example of poor journalism. The absence of one word turns this into fake news and causes people to wonder and have doubts.

As for the cleanup........have you seen how fat the Sandy Hook seals have become?

[Fishin Polski]

They don't eat them because they taste like Scott's weed & feed turf builder!

[Capt Sal]

What is the real truth?As long as you can get people to believe you it is gospel! BULL SHIT!!

[Arbutis]

The general public can easily swallow the story of 'predatory fish chasing the bunker' into the shallow lallow shalla lallows where they die from lack of oxygen. But IF the news story read "Sometimes there's this poison that runs off the green grass lawns and kills millions of fish" well now you have a conspiratheory (just made that word up).

Just remember, if you yell Barracuda - everybody says huh? what???> But you yell Shark!> and you have a damn panic on your hands on the 4th of July.

[dakota560]

The general public can easily swallow the story of 'predatory fish chasing the bunker' into the shallow lallow shalla lallows where they die from lack of oxygen. But IF the news story read "Sometimes there's this poison that runs off the green grass lawns and kills millions of fish" well now you have a conspiratheory (just made that word up).

Just remember, if you yell Barracuda - everybody says huh? what???> But you yell Shark!> and you have a damn panic on your hands on the 4th of July.

I often wonder how many people have health issues which are never linked to bass that winter over in the Hudson, Newark Bay, Arthur Kill etc. when they're caught in the spring in Sandy Hook or along the coast during their northerly migration. Funny how often I hear people say you'd have to be crazy eating anything from that entire ecosystem but you know they're being consumed when they leave their wintering grounds. I'm sure some will say as long as you get all the red meat off the fillet they're fine, that's where toxins are stored in the body fat. Any fish swimming around in the waters off the turnpike while they have my utmost respect, don't have enough red meat to cut off to the extent I'd consume them.

Dan I'm not familiar with the location from the picture in your post. Any chance that area froze up (brackish water) during the winter and the kill happened earlier but wasn't noticed until ice out. Might explain why the gulls didn't feast on them if they weren't accessible.

[Blackfishhead]

They don't eat them because they taste like Scott's weed & feed turf builder!

2x
Too much urban development going on!
Wherever they can plow down the trees or where there once was a farm and fields they are building homes.
The old Bamm Hollow Golf course and the Bell Labs in Holmdel and anywhere that they can put a house or townhouses just to name a few.
The ecosystem cannot filter it .
But the keep building And create a NEW TAX for us.
Oh boy really didn’t want to go there.
Stop building!

[Capt Sal]

I often wonder how many people have health issues which are never linked to bass that winter over in the Hudson, Newark Bay, Arthur Kill etc. when they're caught in the spring in Sandy Hook or along the coast during their northerly migration. Funny how often I hear people say you'd have to be crazy eating anything from that entire ecosystem but you know they're being consumed when they leave their wintering grounds. I'm sure some will say as long as you get all the red meat off the fillet they're fine, that's where toxins are stored in the body fat. Any fish swimming around in the waters off the turnpike while they have my utmost respect, don't have enough red meat to cut off to the extent I'd consume them.

Dan I'm not familiar with the location from the picture in your post. Any chance that area froze up (brackish water) during the winter and the kill happened earlier but wasn't noticed until ice out. Might explain why the gulls didn't feast on them if they weren't accessible.
The bass were fine migrating up from North Carolina and Virginia but as soon as they turned the Point of Sandy Hook they are not edible.Use to hear that all the time.Total bs

[WhaleFart]

I wouldn’t eat anything out of the Hudson/east river. Yes fish migrate but some don’t leave. Damage was done 100 years ago to our waters in urban areas and I personally recommend eating anything north of the VZ bridge.

[dakota560]

The bass were fine migrating up from North Carolina and Virginia but as soon as they turned the Point of Sandy Hook they are not edible.Use to hear that all the time.Total bs

I wasn't implying that at all BUT you can't argue there's fish that winter over in highly polluted waters being harvested when they start their spring migration. If people choose to consume them or not that's their personal choice.

[Capt Sal]

I wouldn’t eat anything out of the Hudson/east river. Yes fish migrate but some don’t leave. Damage was done 100 years ago to our waters in urban areas and I personally recommend eating anything north of the VZ bridge.

So one day the stripers are by the Statue of Liberty and the next day they are by Hoffmans Island?