He would wade the shallows hurling a cast net at schools of mullet, or hook speckled sea trout from the causeways, and go home with so many fish that his family had to salt them to preserve the catch. Refrigerators in those days weren't large enough.

``Every weekend we'd be out there, catching mullet,'' says Muench, 68, of Ruskin. ``I've waded the whole Bay for over 50 years.''

Even if time has embellished Muench's memories, there's no question the Bay's condition deteriorated sharply as he grew from adolescent to adult.

In the 1950s, for example, seagrass covered the bottom of about 60 of the Bay's nearly 400 square miles. In 1982, nearly half of it was gone.

It didn't take people long to figure out that the problem was, well, people. We had been abusing the Bay for decades, dumping staggering amounts of barely treated sewage into it, along with a long list of other wastes - from fertilizer runoff to fuel and other compounds spilled at the port.

Algae feeding on the sewage exploded in blooms that blocked sunlight and killed the seagrass. Then the algae died, rotted and stank. The decay robbed the water of oxygen, which in turn killed fish, adding to the rank odor.

The result was so grim that some joked about the Bay having an unofficial song: ``Moon Over Miasma.''

That's what finally turned the tide, says Dick Eckenrod, director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program. People with the clout to get something done started pushing government to make the smell go away.

``Driving the early changes in state law were some influential people living along Bayshore Boulevard who got tired of the stench,'' Eckenrod says.

First came a law that forced sewage plants to either improve treatment or stop discharging effluent into the Bay. But it took an additional five years for the Bay to begin its natural cleansing and recovery process.

Problems Go Up Food Chain

Because they provide refuge and food for juvenile fish, crabs and shrimp, the seagrass beds are a cornerstone of the Bay's ecosystem.

The last full seagrass survey of the Bay was in January 2002. It showed beds covering more than 40 square miles of the Bay's bottom, a gain of about 6 square miles from the low point in 1982.

The depleted seagrass was just one of the Bay's ailments. Among the others: encroachment upon the mangroves, salt marshes and banks of the rivers that feed the Bay.

The water in these areas isn't as salty as the Bay's, and until development began, the marshes and riverbanks tended to be overgrown with grass and brush, making them ideal nurseries for game fish and the bait fish they feed on. Predators seldom come after them there; bigger fish shy away from water low in salt.

Development, however, has destroyed many of these sanctuaries. Muench sees the consequences every time he sets out to tend his 300 crab traps off the mouth of the Little Manatee River.

At the stern of his shallow draft, no-nonsense boat, Muench deftly hooks and hauls in the line connecting each wire trap to a round Styrofoam buoy.

With a practiced twist, he opens a latch and dumps the skittering crustaceans into a plastic tub. In less than a minute, the trap is rebaited and back in the water. Muench has followed this routine two days a week for 28 years, giving him practiced hands - and eyes.

Before development - before the subdivisions, roads and malls sprouted in the river's basin - a heavy rain would flush leaves and other organic debris from forests and swamps into the river, which in turn carried it to the Bay.

``It was like somebody took a high-pressure hose and flushed out the swamps,'' Muench says. So much dead vegetation flowed downstream that it sometimes packed his crab traps.

It gave the Bay a jolt of food at its most basic level. Microorganisms devoured the dead vegetation. Plankton fed on the microorganisms. Then something else ate the plankton - and so on, up the food chain.

``That natural flow has been interrupted,'' Muench says. ``Every time they put in a subdivision, it disrupts the hydrologic flow.''

An effort is under way to reclaim some of the lost marshes and riverbank refuges: Since 1992, more than half of a square mile around the Bay has been returned to its natural state.

But the Bay faces another threat, and we've done little to counter it.

The Nitrogen Factor

Every year, 3,700 tons of nitrogen are dumped into the Bay. Nitrogen is a key ingredient of fertilizer, so it promotes the growth of algae in the same way that sewage discharges did a generation ago.

Most of the nitrogen falls from the sky.

About half comes from the exhaust fumes of gasoline engines, meaning that every time we drive to work or the grocery store, or start a lawn mower or leaf blower, we add to the problem.

An additional 6 percent comes from the smokestacks of electrical plants, although that may shrink as power companies convert from coal to gas.

About 17 percent is carried into the Bay in runoff. Although the Bay covers 400 square miles, the rivers flowing into it drain an area six times that size with countless houses and new ones going up all the time. Many of us use fertilizer for our lawns and gardens. Nitrogen is a key ingredient in fertilizer - meaning that every time it rains, the Bay gets another nitrogen infusion.

Finally, there are the miscellaneous nitrogen sources, including sewage discharges; although it's treated more thoroughly now, it still yields nitrogen.

As growth continues, so will development. With development will come more people, more houses, more trucks and cars. With all that, the amount of nitrogen getting into the Bay is bound to keep going up, scientists say.

Groups such as the estuary program are beginning to focus on ways to keep this escalation in check. But at best, experts say, they may be able to keep the Bay's health where it is today.

From Muench's vantage point in the stern of his work boat, that doesn't bode well. He questions whether holding the line is enough, or whether it's even possible to do so.

``In some respects,'' he says, the Bay already is ``going down faster than we can bring it back.

``With every person, you add another source of pollution,'' he adds.

Reporter Neil Johnson can be reached at (352) 544-5214.