. . . They Might Get Them in February

I remember when I was a young and didn't really know how to fish too much, that I would take my sand clogged reels down to the late Ernie's bait and tackle, and he would say with a cigarette in his mouth, "you got too much goddamn corrosion in here.  And quit putting the reels in the sand."  I would agree, he was right, but I always thought he was a little nuts when he would tell me, "Ah.  You can get them in February.  I remember a blitz up by the inlet up in February."  "February?"  "Yeah,  February.  You could catch them in February kid.  Blitzes."

I don't know if he was making that up or not, or he was really a futurist who had a vision that 2012 might possibly be the year of the February striper bite.  Last night I got a call from John, a welder who made a custom rack for me over the past few weeks.

Me:  "Hello."
John:  "Hey Joey, what's going on?"
Me:  "Hey John.  What's up?"
John:  "I figured I'd let you know.  My buddy called me, he was out fishing the other day, I thought he was full of it."
Me:  "No way . . ."
John:  "He said he had like maybe four or six.  But his buddy had something like 25 fish the other day.  He said he could see the bass in the water."
Me:  "North a little?  Out in the water some?"
John:  "Exactly."
Me:  "25?  That is insane.  It's the 27th of January!"
John:  "He called me up and I thought you'd like to know."
Me:  "Thank you.  I'm not going to act on it, but I like to hear what's up.  I could have worn a t-shirt the other day when you were fixing the survey gear.  I guess with that and the sand eels that like to root in the bites are still going."
John:  "It was warm the other day.  Well we'll have to get out there this spring."
Me:  "Definitely.  I need my winter recovery time, but with the birds chirping the other morning I don't feel like I'm getting it.  There's going to be fish into February!"

Now, look at this next picture, and see if you can see like I see that it looks warm.  This was driving over the bridge on Friday:

As of the 29th: 17 days above 50F, 2 days above 60F.  It not only looks warm, it is warm.

As long as some cooler air holds in the high latitudes February will likely be another warm month here in New Jersey.  If you learn the see-saw relationship of temperature in the AR-SE oscillation you will also be able to dazzle your friends with your psychic abilities.