Salinity levels in Sabine tend to be lower, thus saltwater intrusion is less of an issue. Various factors contribute to lower salinity in Sabine:

1. More freshwater flow due to draining much larger watersheds. Also dammed reservoirs releasing fresh water for power generation during low rainfall periods.

2. Weaker coupling between Sabine Lake and the Gulf of Mexico. The southern end of Sabine lake is less connected to the ship channel.

In addition, the marsh between Sabine and West Cove may simply be less susceptible to saltwater intrusion. Possible explanations:

1. The soil is slightly higher in elevation. As much as 6" would make a big difference in saltwater intrusion.

2. The soil types on that part of Cameron may be less susceptible to saltwater intrusion.

Sabine and Neches rivers flowing into Sabine lake.

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That makes absolutely no sense. What about the marshes on se ends of galveston bay and ne corner. Lower Laguna and Baffin have huge marshes feeding into estuary. Baffin, corpus christy, and laguna madre there salt levels stay in mid 20's. Why they have giants and we don't.

I have friends that guide in several estuary's in texas and when they come to big lake and see a weir system blocking off a natural marsh. They laugh and say only in LA can you buy a lock sytem to protect yourduck hunting.

Marshes
 

In all fairness...... Yes, there are a ton of marshes in those Texas esutaries, BUT, I can guarantee you that those marshes in TX are easily adaptive to saltwater. THe marsh behind the wiers are not even in the same class of marsh as those in TX. I was part of the CRMS project on its first 2 initial contracts. We took salinity readings back there once a month. You wouldn't imagine the range of salinities form the marsh behind T boy's wier (closest to the channel) to the salinity up near the marsh south of Commissary. Only a few miles difference, but the marsh near Bois Connie and Mangrove wiers were much more diverse in plant life as opposed to the 4-6 species of plants behind the one closest to the channel. Lack of rain is the biggest factor right now. I believe pure seawater is close to 35 ppm. Some readings back there in the brackish marshes, NOT salt marshes were reading close to 29 ppm at times. After large periods of rain, it would drop considerably. So, to compare the ecosystems in the lower to midcoast of TX to the marsh behind the wiers just isn't like an apples to apples argument. And also, they have longer fish over there than we do. Can you imagine if a 32" trout was caught in Big Lake? I've caught 24" 6 pounders in the lake. TO ME, our fish seem heavier here, just not quite as long as the ones in Baffin, Corpus, etc....

Just my .02.....

Big Lake has never had specks as big as Baffin, Corpus, and Lower Laguna.

Those systems favor the production of much smaller numbers of bigger fish.

The waters are warmer due to lower latitude which extends the growing season, so specks grow longer each year. The bigger specks actually get big enough to eat smaller specks buy age 3 or so, so that speck on speck food chain is much more prominent than in Louisiana waters.

Another important difference is that those marshes have always been salt marshes. They have reached an equilibrium as salt marshes. They are not formerly brackish marshes that stand to undergo tremendous erosive losses if converted to salt. Soil and bottom types are also much more resistant to erosion than the silt in SW LA.

Just came off 30 days of vacation and spent all but 3 at camp, those full time guides are disgusted with how the State and CCA has let our fishing go to hell!

One of the guides who has been guiding on lake over 20years started applying for plant jobs because he knows this is about to run dry!

no bait , no oysters , no land , ship channel 60ft deep to la berge
Weirs operated like ObamaCare
Not going to make fish stay !!!

annnnd no weirs

Open the weirs plant Texas marsh grass back there.
Your welcome

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ask the gill netters from the 80s and 90s how big the trout were here. they would put them in crates of 100 lbs of fish. I have heard stories of 10 fish per crate and they were gutted.

vote clampy cca pres

Instead of complaing about it on here set up a lake alliance. Approach all involved parties (eg, port of l.c., ldwf, ldeq(based on sediment deposition the aliance could influnce BMPs to be installed by port). Develop a lake corrective action plan (CAP) and submit it to CPRA, many parishes governments are curently doing this to get a piece of the draft master plan. Within the master they have probably 10 go-bys that would be a great template for the at hand problems. If you formailze it on paper you will get a better response vs. Trying to use the good old boy method. The CAP would probably take 5, 000 - 8, 000 to write it.Just my .02. Have a fishing tournament to sponsor the plan. Boooom.

Or loose the great fishing that we all know the lake can sustain.

A bunch of you cats want to be the hero on here. How about be the hero of big lake. End thread.

the texas bay systems are natural salt water bays. Sabine and Big lake have man made ship channels in to gulf. Sabine has more freshwater flow frome 2 rivers BL has 1.

I think BAY SYSTEMS like BB,LM,GB etc. where always salt water systems as too LAKES like BL,SL,etc. where fresh water systems with undamed rivers flowing into them. Then came ship channels and intercostal water ways and things changed. Talked with Peggy Baily who was very old and she grew up on the north end of sabine lake,shes been daed for about ten years. She said Sabine way back when was half the size it is now and was full of cypres trees and very shallow.

Cajun Outback in upper Trinity Bay has a levee around their hunting lodge and property..they control the salt levels with a type of "wier" system. Pipes and valves. Guess where the best duck hunting is. Rain is their best friend.

Just rocked a big piece of the ship channel here. Looks like the feds chipped in. From the limited research I've done, it looks like the feds, the city of port Arthur, and the navigation district all chipped in on the project. Hope this helps. http://countyprogress.zacpubs.com/news-reviews-14/

This is very informational

https://lacoast.gov/reports/static/HILCP_3.pdf

its from 1997, but still very comprehensive. I found a lot of answers to questions asked here within this report. It certainly explains the differences between B.L. and Sabine....truly apples and oranges hydrlogicaly spreaking.