The Newsmagazine of Long Beach Island and Southern Ocean County

By Jay Mann | on August 25, 2022

PUTTERING AROUND: This angler plans on teeing off on any fluke in the surf. To transport his surfcasting gear, he has improvised a golf push cart into a rod and tackle transport device, while forgoing a sand wedge. (Photo by Curt Travers)

Monday’s downpour was quite a flash flooder. You’ll see some photos within this issue of The SandPaper.

The stormage was mainly a mid-Island rain event, resulting in motorist aggravation of the highest order. The rapid-fire rain dropped up to 5 inches in a flash, thusly flash flooding. Ship Bottom and Surf City took the brunt of the protracted cloudburst – though a real-time cloudburst is technically rainfall at a rate of about 4 inches an hour.

Since there were no tidal factors in play, the flooded roads quickly shed up to 3 feet of standing water – right into the Manahawkin Bay section of Barnegat Bay. What a dirty move. With our prolonged drought – a downpour doth not a drought undo – obnoxious amounts of road gunk had accumulated on the macadam. Well, it’s all inglorious bay matter now.

By personifying the bay, one can imagine it harboring vengeful thoughts for being oozed upon by mankind. Then, during major floodings, it emerges through the sewer grates all “Remember me!?” Paybacks are a you-know-what.

This is something of a lead-in to my revisiting the ongoing die-offs of baby bunker in the bayside vicinity of Harvey Cedars. Last week, I wrote on the first belly-up showing of young-of-year bunker, the menhaden peanut gallery. There has since been another rising of DOA bunkies. See related story this issue.

I’ll rightfully persist with the high likelihood that the unsightly displays come about when the bayside bunkies either mistakenly enter solar-heated, low-oxygen bay shallows or are driven there by bluefish. Once stuck and confused within such an O2-starved environment, end times are nigh.

Even knowing what most likely caused the die-offs, it’s environmentally judicious to ponder potential contributing factors.

I will confidently rule out toxic or caustic causes, which some folks initially feared. Poisons and such would result in species of many forms and colors also succumbing. Nope.

Spearing (Atlantic silversides), the most populous species in the bunker die-off area, are weathering the trying waters just fine. That’s due in large part to their tendency to more loosely school, lessening nearby competition for breathable waters. Also, spearing are more inclined to sink into deeper, more oxygen-rich waters when they become short of breath up top.

So, why don’t bunker also seek air deeper down? Enter an irreversible instinct to always avoid what lurks down below … at any cost. It’s actually a very sound instinct, considering what awaits them down below once grown and out at sea. As to tightly schooling, it offers the best odds at not being eaten — not that the odds are all that great, being forage fish and all.

Now to a more angling-centric die-off consideration. Last week, I alluded to the intense pressure by fishermen to protect the adult menhaden breeding stocks. Such conservation could surely increase the number of baby bunker in the bay. So, might die-offs be a product of overpopulation, as was suggested to me? A double “nope” on that one. A truly dangerous biomass imbalance in the bay would produce bunker die-offs at every bay turn. Not happening. The die-offs we’ve seen, including those in mainland lagoons, have been highly localized, the result of certain factors happening to align in a small area.

Note: Annual spawning success always reigns supreme when it comes to larval menhaden arrivals in Barnegat Bay. You’ve heard of a good year for the roses? The same applies to a peanut bunker year.

For a bleaker die-off factor, we’re societally compelled to acknowledge suspected planetary warming trends. I’m not as big as others when it comes to the entire climate change timeline, but there’s no discounting irrefutable findings that oceans are warming, primarily at the surface.

Due to a close association, the bay is surely feeling the big-picture heat increase, at least to some degree. This year, we can mix in stints of fierce sun beat-downs. Overall, things have boded badly for bay bunker. Spookily, such trying times could befall all bayside denizens if the warm-up continues unabated.  Let’s not allow bunker die-offs to be a sign of times to come.

Finally, a legit factor that might have Barnegat Bay hot under the collar is its overall shallowing. Do not underestimate the destructive potential of eutrophication, whereby sediments progressively layer on the bottom. This moves the bottom surfaceward, the essence of shallowing.

The undesirable upward mobility of the bay bottom is enhanced by fallout from mankind-evoked algal blooms, along with untold tons of dead eelgrass sheared by boat props. As noted upward from here, truckloads of sediment are also being washed off roadways; much of that material is bottom-bound.

Again, I am not professing the current bunker die-offs are anything more than a huge biomass of baby bunker – a very good thing – accidentally getting stuck in shallow water. What’s more, the vast majority of baby bunker will survive and replenish the near-shore stock of adult menhaden, another very good thing. We simply need to constantly stand watch over the bay from whence comes our fishing future.

RAY REHASH: Holding fast to a last-week theme, I had failed to put in a bad word for cownose stingrays, which can ravage bay areas, ruining clam and shellfish beds, including those bottom zones set aside for aquaculture. Dedicated carnivores, ray schools will devour every crustacean and bivalve they can vacuum out of the sand, using a suction action created by flapping a specialized portion of their wings.

Deceivingly, a single ray is not a heavy eater. It’s when you have schools with no end in sight, all dining lightly, that a ruinous bottom toll can be taken. Chesapeake Bay has been horribly put upon by ray schools numbering in the thousands. Up our way, ray schools may be smaller, but plenty destructive enough to enrage baymen.

OVERDONE FIRST AID: I got quite the chuckle while researching stingray stings. It came via the CDC, a seldom chuckle-laden group. Included among the reasons ray stings sometimes require advanced medical assistance is “overexuberant first aid care.”

Sadly, the CDC does not elaborate, leaving one like myself to vividly imagine what such overexuberance might look like. The thing is I might already know … all too well. Flashback alert.

As a very minor lad (late 1950s), my multi-kid peer group, which we very gratuitously dubbed a “gang,” was doing its usual woods exploration when we came across an older kid and his buddy. Both were well known in the neighborhood as tough but friendly guys. Surprisingly, they were in a state of panic. One of them, Billy Roy by name, had just been bitten on the hand by a snake. A raggy makeshift tourniquet was already tied around his bicep. That alone told me the day was taking an inordinately odd turn.

I hereby promise the following went down just as I’ll describe it.

Billy Roy’s buddy ran up to us and asked if anyone had a knife. I did indeed have a Swiss Army penknife, a beauty I never allowed anyone to touch. I reluctantly but understandably made an exception. I unpocketed the knife, fingernailed out the main blade and handed it over. Likely a big mistake.

We then looked on in kid-grade utter disbelief as my knife was used to slice open the back of Billy Roy’s hand where he had been bitten. Next, Billy Roy’s buddy began sucking blood out – grimacingly spitting it on the ground near our feet, mouthful after mouthful.

Understand, we were generally and genetically the most spastic Ritalin-needy kids going, easily qualifying as the Bounce Off the Wall Gang. But, for that strange and sanguine moment in time, we all just stood there like little frozen statues, eyes many times their normal size. Birds could have nested in our mouths; they were that open. Our brains had undergone permanent etchings. I do recall silently thinking, “But we don’t have poisonous snakes here,” which was the case since it would be determined that Billy Roy had been bitten by an everyday garter snake, which he later picked out of a lineup.

As to the aftermath, Billy Roy was carried off in an ambulance as we stood by, again becoming stone-still kids, with me wondering if I might somehow be blamed for the mayhem caused by my blade. I recall I buried it in a red bandanna for something like three months.

As the ambulance slowly pulled away, I had no way of knowing that half a century hence, that day would give me remarkable insight into “overexuberant first aid care.”

RUNDOWN: I’m afraid to even mention/jinx it, but the ocean water over the weekend climbed into the upper 70s. A 78.2 was taken by Jim M. in Holgate. Of course, by the time this issue reaches the streets and cloud (thesandpaper.net), it could have slunk back into the 50s with a south wind assist.

Beachside fluke are again readily available to those with a flair for casting and retrieving dangled GULPs. Ask shops for the best set-up for fluking the surf.

As expected, cownose rays are occasionally being landed. When hooked, they are a handful – hopefully not literally, though I won’t be shocked when the first sting report comes in.

For the fifth year in succession, late-summer blowfishing has gone bountifully bonkers. The spawned-out puffers are now out there in bucket-filling numbers as they muster to migratorily exit the bay, hopefully after a very successful spawning session.

It does take a knack to royally nab a plethora of puffers, beginning with boating to the prime locales where they gather. Bayside holes near Barnegat Inlet are good bets. Shops can once again be helpful in hinting at exact locales.

Once atop a prime puffer gathering point, it comes down to getting a nice chum slick going. Ground clams work well. Holding to the slick demands double anchoring, stern and bow. Patience prevails, allowing time for the chum to do its attraction magic. If a site fails to proffer puffers, it’s time for a venue change.

For bait, tiny bits of squid work fine, as do small pieces of clam tongue.

Many puffer aficionados use special long-shanked hooks, though small red or gold beak hooks will also work well, as will freshwater hooks of a sunfish-seeking nature. There are also ideal premade blowfish rigs, though a hook simply tied to the tag end of the line, with maybe a minor split shot for sinkage, is often all that is needed.

PUTTING UP PUFFERS: Being the world’s easiest and fastest fish to clean, blowfish are the ultimate put-up fish, using an old expression for storing.

There may be no better fish to freeze for winter. When frozen fast and fresh, there is virtually no taste or texture loss even after months in the freezer.

Individually fast-freezing dry filets works perfectly, though there is longstanding tradition of hard-freezing a load of tails in a solid block of ice, using milk cartons as containers. While hard-freezing is very time efficient, you must thaw an entire block to access the meat within. Individually fast-freezing in bags allows for selective usage.

Note: Always allow frozen tails to thaw completely; otherwise the outer portion overcooks before the deeper meat is properly heated.

It’s not my thing, but I’m told that blowfish meat – fresh or even thawed – makes great sashimi and sushi. This ushers in the subject of fugu, a type of Asian blowfish that can kill a diner in a Tokyo instant if not perfectly prepared. It has been professed that our very own puffers have toxic gonads. Finding that suspect, I once tried some blowfish eggs, which I called “caviar de blow.”  No ill effects – but for crying out loud, do not try this at home!

Returning to the subject of putting up, fluke filets run a close second to blowfish when it comes to freeing for future colder times. While IQF (individual quick freezing) is best, stored fluke are much more prone to freezer burn, a term that includes the absorbing of freezer tastes. Individually bag and freeze the filets, then double bag, storing in the coldest and darkest part of the fridge freezer.

While on the subject of scrumptious fluke, a fellow who is into cooking fish in the round – to maximize meat gain – told me he merely guts fluke and barbecues them whole. Outstanding, A-company.

Since flounder filets fall to pieces on a BBQ grill, cooking them in the round – a flat round, mind you – keeps them in one cooked piece, needing only the crisp skin to be pulled back, exposing the finest smoke-touched flounder meat going. When done picking the meat, all that remains is a perfect fluke skeleton, suitable for framing.

I am gastronomically ready to seek surfside flatties once the Holgate beachfront opens to buggies, around Sept. 1. Fluke season continues until Sept 27.

Final thought: Please show some sanitation kindness by thoroughly bagging, then double bagging innards and leftovers of seafood items. With this heat and all, loose seafood discards, especially offal, become a truly awful lift-and-dump for sanitation workers. And where would we be without them?

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