Large fish kill in the Shark River

[Tpkc2]

This is headline news on CBS, NBC and ABC......this is not good! Yeah, it happens in August, not May!

[hammer4reel]

bunker were thick last night from SRI , up to Long Branch.
School was 3 miles wide , they were having NO problems oceanside except for being hammered by bluefish.

There was a net boat just north of the inlet at 930 last night,
Working that area. HMM so what could it have really been

Originally Posted by hammer4reel

bunker were thick last night from SRI , up to Long Branch.
School was 3 miles wide , they were having NO problems oceanside except for being hammered by bluefish.

There was a net boat just north of the inlet at 930 last night,
Working that area. HMM so what could it have really been

Bingo....guaranteed. Commercial guy whose nets were too full and dumps the residual. If they determine this ti be the case, they should confiscate the *******s boat and throw the book at the owner, captain and crew for wasting our resource. Can't see how this has anything to do with low oxygen levels at this time of year.

[Capt Jimmy Elliott]

Originally Posted by dakota560

Bingo....guaranteed. Commercial guy whose nets were too full and dumps the residual. If they determine this ti be the case, they should confiscate the *******s boat and throw the book at the owner, captain and crew for wasting our resource. Can't see how this has anything to do with low oxygen levels at this time of year.

So let me get this rite
A trawler working a couple miles off the beach dumps it catch. Then all the dumped fish finds its way all the way to the marina another mile inland from the jetties. Cmon,!! That would be some feat! First of all bunker boats dont work at night none of them pack in Shark River . Fluke season is open commercially and they are allowed to work 2 miles off shore and out.

Lets get some facts straight before everyone goes pointing fingers

Did anyone think maybe Just maybe that Shark River has filled in sooo much after sandy just like most bays and rivers and its so shallow at anygiven point of the day now. We have had sooo much rain , snow , and runoff that not enough saltwater is getting back there !!!

Hey but what do i lknow. JUst my 2 cents

[Reelman73088]

I was out fishing shark river inlet today and trust me that was no bunker boat offloading its over quota catch. There were thousands of them floating out of the inlet the entire outgoing tide. The kill had to be in the millions. I talked to a fish and game officer who was at the jetty checking everything out and he said that it was because of an algae bloom as well. He also said its not that uncommon if they get chased into the back and then get stuck with low tide and an algae bloom. They were def oxygen starved as the few I saw that were alive were at the surface gulping air and were very sluggish. Got some good bait for crabbing season though out of it. And to think i was such a dummy this morning to buy a fresh bunker at the baitshop lol. It was sad to see that many bunker dead though. Weird thing was the seagulls weren't touching them. I would have thought the dinner bell was ringing and they'd be all over them. I guess maybe they gorged themselves early in the morning or overnight last night. They were littered all over the beach as well next to the jetty. Lots of guys got free bait today.

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by Capt Jimmy Elliott

So let me get this rite
A trawler working a couple miles off the beach dumps it catch. Then all the dumped fish finds its way all the way to the marina another mile inland from the jetties. Cmon,!! That would be some feat! First of all bunker boats dont work at night none of them pack in Shark River . Fluke season is open commercially and they are allowed to work 2 miles off shore and out.

Lets get some facts straight before everyone goes pointing fingers

Did anyone think maybe Just maybe that Shark River has filled in sooo much after sandy just like most bays and rivers and its so shallow at anygiven point of the day now. We have had sooo much rain , snow , and runoff that not enough saltwater is getting back there !!!

Hey but what do i lknow. JUst my 2 cents

there was a bunker boat working just outside the 6/10 of a mile legal limit for bait boats last night AFTER dark. was after 930 when I passed him

I drove way tight on the beach getting around him last night. He was def in legal water and even very well lit u so well it looked like an amusement ride at night and I almost took a pic as it was a cool site.

Bunker was spread out for miles from there and 25' thick .
I would have expected IF a boat tried to haul last night it would have been hard pressed to not have a maximum haul, as the blue fish had the bunker not knowing which way to turn next.

with the extremely low tide last night the water rushing into the inlet especially in the back is ripping.

so I think at current water temps, and super tide flow its even more silly to think that those fish would have been ox deprived enough to not make it back to the ocean where they had been swimming without issue other than blue fish attacks.

and there most certainly was not an algae bloom, as the signs of that dont leave that quick

[rumster]

Pretty scary stuff for sure. I stopped at the Fisherman`s Den in Belmar at 7:00 am to pick up some clams and was told by a few guys what was going on. I went to the water to see myself and sure enough Fluke,Bunker, Flounder and a blow fish were just fighting to get air coming to the surface periodically and just sinking back to the bottom. After picking up the clams I made my way over to my boat, which is located on the river and it was the same story 1000`s of bunker all around dead or dying . As I made my way out to the ocean you could see that the fish were becoming more and more active. I returned to the marina at 3:30 pm and checked out a few bunker to find that gill`s of the bunker were pretty much disintegrated. It did not look like an algae bloom event and I am pretty sure it wasn't the result of a netter dumping a load.

[Striperswiper]

A buddy sent me a text and photo early this morning while they were all still alive.

He estimated the amount of live bunker in the river in the millions.

They probably made a wrong turn, got stuck in the river as there is really no water even at high tide and couldn't figure out how to back out of there and get into the ocean.

Packed in like sardines (bunker) they just suffocated. It's a real shame.

They usually don't come into Shark River in large numbers so this is really not the norm but if the river had been dredged it might have given them half a chance to get back out.
Capt Brian

[torchee]

Someone asked about Staten Island

I was on the kayak last night until 9

Many bunker, all still swimming

[Tuna Tales]

Yesterday I had to fuel up early and then head to work.

I saw these all of these bunker around 6:30 am...unreal sight and never seen anything like that in Belmar.

Dead and alive...all across Shark River. The live ones were on top and finning.

Full Moon?
Too many ocean bluefish pushed them in the river?
Freak happening?

It did look like lack of oxygen as a lot were also half alive when swimming around...



Best,



Joe T.