|
|
Fishing in the beautiful scenic areas of the Lake Ponchartrain Basin. 
  
   
Guide to Lake Ponchartrain and surrounding area. The Lake Pontchartrain is a hot spot for outdoor recreation and entertainment. The fishing is rival to anywhere in the area. It offers every recreational fishing experience you ask for by day and the nightlife in New Orleans at night. Lake Pontchartrain from space
 General Map of Lake Pontchartrain Recently the addition of artificial reefs has also improved and expanded the habitat for fish. The structures were set in the lake from barges and are excellent structures for angling. The Lake Ponchartrain Basin offers some of the best fishing in Louisiana. Wheather trolling the tressell, jigging the piles, or poppin' a cork at fifth beach, you will enjoy a day on the lake.
| Lake Ponchartrain: Lake Pontchartrain (French: Lac Pontchartrain,) is a brackish lake located in southeastern Louisiana. It is the second largest salt-water lake in the United States, after the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and the largest lake in Louisiana. It covers an area of 630 square miles (1630 square km) with an average depth of 12 to 14 feet (about 4 meters). Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about 40 miles (64 km) wide and 24 miles (39 km) from south to north.
The south shore forms the northern boundary of the cities of New Orleans, and its two largest suburbs Metairie and Kenner. On the north shore are the cities of Mandeville, Covington, and Madisonville. To the northeast is the city of Slidell.
Namesake
Lake Pontchartrain is named after Louis Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain, the French Minister of the Marine, chancellor of France and minister of finance during the reign of France's "Sun King," Louis XIV, for whom Louisiana is named.
Description
Lake Pontchartrain is an estuary which connects with the Gulf of Mexico via Rigolets strait (known locally as "the Rigolets") and Chef Menteur Pass into Lake Borgne, and therefore experiences small tidal changes. It receives fresh water from the Tangipahoa, Tchefuncte, Tickfaw, Amite, and Bogue Falaya Rivers, and from Bayou Lacombe.
Salinity varies from negligible at the northern cusp west of Mandeville up to nearly half seawater level at the eastern bulge past Interstate 10 (or I-10). Lake Maurepas connects with Lake Pontchartrain on the west via Pass Manchac. The Industrial Canal connects the Mississippi River with the lake at New Orleans. Bonnet Carré Spillway diverts water from the Mississippi into the lake during times of river flooding.
New Orleans
New Orleans was established at a Native American portage between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. In the 1920s the Industrial Canal in the eastern part of the city opened, providing a direct navigable water connection, with locks, between the Mississippi River and the lake. In the same decade, a project dredging new land from the lake shore behind a new concrete floodwall began; this would result in an expansion of the city into the former swamp between Metairie/Gentilly Ridges and the lakefront. The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway was constructed in the 1950s and 1960s, connecting New Orleans (by way of Metairie) with Mandeville and bisecting the lake in a north-northeast line. At 24 miles (39 km), the Causeway is the longest over-water bridge in the world.
References
^ Environmental Atlas of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin. USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program (May 14 2002). Retrieved on 2006-06-15.
^ The Lake Pontchartrain Basin: Louisiana's Troubled Urban Estuary. U.S. Geological Survey (November 3 1995). Retrieved on 2006-06-15.
^ Grunwall, Michael; Glasser, Susan B. (September 21 2005). Experts Say Faulty Levees Caused Much of Flooding. washingtonpost.com. Retrieved on 2006-06-15.
^ Blumenthal, Sidney. "No one can say they didn't see it coming". Salon.com. Retrieved on 2006-06-15.
^ Handwerk, Brian (September 2 2005). New Orleans Levees Not Built for Worst Case Events. National Geographic News.
^ Grunwald, Michael; Glasser, Susan B. (September 21 2005). Experts Say Faulty Levees Caused Much of Flooding. washintonpost.com. Retrieved on 2006-06-15.
Try These Links:
Lake PontchartrainLake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation
United States Geological Survey Lake Pontchartrain Fact Sheet
Real-time water data for Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum
USGS Environmental Atlas of Lake Pontchartrain
New Orleans District Water Management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Pontchartrain
Blue Crabs Support Our Troops 
Excellent Resource for fishing information in Lake Ponchartrain and the scenic rivers, bayous and passes. | Hurricanes
Lake Pontchartrain at New Orleans during Hurricane Georges in 1998; lakefront camps outside of the protection levee suffered severe damage.During hurricanes a storm surge can build up in Lake Pontchartrain, just as with Florida's Lake Okeechobee. Wind pushes water into the lake from the Gulf of Mexico as a hurricane approaches from the south, and from there it can spill into New Orleans.
A hurricane in September, 1947 flooded the city, most of which is below sea level (and sinking). After the storm, hurricane-protection levees were built along Lake Pontchartrain's south shore to protect the city. When a storm surge of 10 feet (3 meters) from Hurricane Betsy left much of the city under water in 1965, the levees encircling the city and outlying parishes were raised to heights of 14 to 23 feet (4-7 meters). Due to cost concerns, the levees were built to protect against only a Category 3 hurricane.
Experts using computer modeling at Louisiana State University subsequent to Hurricane Katrina have concluded that the levees were never topped but rather faulty design, inadequate construction, or some combination of the two were responsible for the flooding of most of New Orleans.[3]
Funding
Congress failed to fully fund an upgrade requested during the 1990s by the Army Corps of Engineers, and funding was cut in 2003-04 despite a 2001 study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency warning that a hurricane in New Orleans was one of the country’s 3 most likely disasters.[4] Raising and reinforcing the levees to resist a Category 5 hurricane might take 25 years to complete.[5] Some estimates place the cost at $25 billion.
Hurricane Katrina
When Hurricane Katrina reached Category 5 in 2005, some experts predicted that the levee system might fail completely if the storm passed close to the city. Although Katrina weakened to a Category 3 before making landfall on August 29 (with only Category 1-2 strength in New Orleans on the weaker side of the eye of the hurricane), the levees designed to withstand Category 3 storms suffered multiple breaks the following day (see Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans) flooding 80% of the city.
The walls of the Industrial Canal were breached by storm surge via the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, while the 17th Street Canal and London Avenue Canal experienced catastrophic breaches, even though water levels never topped their flood walls. Louisiana State University experts presented evidence that some of these structures might have had design flaws or faulty construction.[6]
There are indications that the soft earth and peat underlying canal walls may have given way. In the weeks before Katrina, tests of salinity in seepage pools near canals showed them to be lake water, not fresh water from broken mains. The 5.5 mile (9 km) long I-10 Twin Span bridge heading northeast between New Orleans and Slidell was destroyed. Apparently, a bit farther east, the shorter Fort Pike Bridge crossing the outlet to Lake Borgne remained intact. By mid-October, one side of the Twin Span had been repaired and was ready to reopen to two-way traffic.
On September 5, 2005, the Army Corps of Engineers started to fix levee breaches by dropping huge sandbags from Chinook helicopters. The London Avenue Canal and Industrial Canal were blocked at the lake as permanent repairs started. On September 6, the Corps began pumping flood water back into the lake after seven days in the streets of New Orleans, even though it was fouled with human and animal corpses, sewage, heavy metals, petrochemicals, and other dangerous substances. Filters on the pumps kept out large debris.
Aerial photography suggests that 25 billion gallons (95 bn liters) of water covered New Orleans as of September 2, which equals about 2% of Lake Pontchartrain's volume. Due to a lack of electricity, the city was unable to treat the water before pumping it into the lake. It is unclear how long the pollution will persist and what its environmental damage to the lake will be, or the hazards from the mold and contaminated mud remaining in the city.
On September 24, 2005, Hurricane Rita did not breach the temporary repairs in the main part of the city, but the repair on the Industrial Canal wall in the lower 9th ward was breached, allowing about 2 feet of water back into that neigborhood. My residence of the area had there lives completely torn apart if you would like to help, click donate for more information and to help. 
Help for Katrina Victims
National Geographic article about the levees, 2 Sept. 2005
Salon article about disaster predictions, 31 Aug 2005
U.S. Geological Survey article about the Lake Pontchartrain Basin, 3 Nov 1995
BBC article about environmental effects on the lake after the flooding of New Orleans, 8 Sept. 2005
Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 30.206055° -90.102132°
Street map from Google Maps, or Yahoo! Maps, or Windows Live Local
Satellite image from Google Maps, Windows Live Local, WikiMapia
Topographic map from TopoZone
Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
Jeau Jeau Truxillo Robicheaux Book Store
Beginners Guide to Saltwater Fishing 
Click Here!
How to Make Fishing Lures 
  
Click Here!
Make your own Lures East to follow step by step instructions Hundred of design ideas 
     Click Here! 
If you would like to contribute to this website . please click below to donate. |
|