I’m also looking at the temperature today in New Hampshire where my brother lives. Usually covered in a blanket of snow from November through April, the ground on the web cam is void of snow and the temperature is hovering around forty degrees. Granted a cold front and snow storm are imminent, but this is an unusually warm winter for that part of the country.
I’m looking at all the trees around my neighborhood that are beginning to bloom – almost a month earlier than normal. I’m watching offshore water temperatures that are warmer by several degrees than I have seen them since I began paying attention to them.
Over the past several years we are seeing more and more fish that are usually found much farther south. Mangrove (gray) snapper, which are usually a midsummer curiosity in North Florida are showing up in larger numbers and larger sizes. In past years it was difficult to find a keeper that would reach the ten inch limit. This past fall we frequently caught limits of these snapper.
I can’t observe every state and fishing location, but based on the weather patterns I watch it appears to me that the same thing may be happening in your fishing world.
Maine anglers have complained all winter because the saltwater ice fishing has been a bust. The water never froze hard enough to go out on the ice. Many northern lakes failed to freeze hard enough for inland ice fishing.
As someone once said – I think I smell a rat… Could it be that this is simply a cyclical issue and we are on a warm cycle of winters that will change over the next five years? Hurricane forecasters tell us the hurricane seasons will only grow worse (last year broke every record going), but then they tell us it is all in a cycle. Could they be wrong?
Reading the North Carolina Wildlife Magazine this month, I read with interest the article that showed coastal lowlands being flooded by seawater because of what the magazine said was a rise in the ocean level caused by global warming and the resulting melting of our polar ice caps.
I’m paying more attention to the weather these days, and with an interest that goes beyond fishing. But in all of this, I still plan on fishing.
Actually, the appearance of the more tropical varieties of fish farther north than normal presents some interesting fishing opportunities. This means a longer bait season and that necessarily means a longer predator fish season as well. It means gearing up for some species that anglers in northern climes may never have had an opportunity to pursue.
While the world and every individual in it can respond and hopefully avoid the natural disaster that a true global warming will produce, the world and every individual in it has to at the same time get on with life. So while I do things to protect the environment, I also plan to continue fishing – albeit perhaps in a modified fashion and for a more varied species of fish.
