Someone Caught Some Stripers in February

Someone caught some stripers in February:

The text reads, "So I can finally say I caught bass in February!!! 4 last night up to 27in black or blurple bomber incoming tide . . .missed 2 others

This report was taken from Stripersonline and there were a handful of other reports just like it.  Another report from the Fisherman:

"Amazingly enough, there are still some stripers being caught from the surf in Deal and Mantoloking on pencil poppers, and the bass at Mantoloking were up to 16 pounds."

I don't know what sounds more ridiculous- good numbers of bass being caught in February, or bass being caught in February on pencil poppers.  As it is with storytelling, information often gets diluted or altered as news is passed along, but there is still enough data to conclude that the striper bite this February has been better than most of October.  Whoever is out there fishing and catching is probably having a great time without a crowd because not many people think to seriously striper fish the beach in February.

Certainly a warmer atmosphere has been a contributing factor to the late season action.  I wouldn't say it was the only reason the bass hung around so long, but it was certainly a reason.  The migrations are very much correlated with temperature and food source.  This year the temperature was warmer than average for a prolonged period.  Combine relatively comfortable water temperatures with sand eels and other baits that are still hanging around and what reason do the bass have to leave?

January was pretty warm here in the United States at 4th warmest on record.  Only January 2006, 1953, and 1990 were warmer.  But for as warm as it felt in New Jersey this January you may be surprised to know there 15 Januarys that were warmer.  January 1932 was the warmest January on record in New Jersey, part of the very famous Year without a Winter which you can inform yourself about in an older post if you choose to.  The more you read, the more you will see a lot of stuff was going on with the weather in the 1930s.

But what made the warmth abnormal this year was that it occurred with weather that was mostly like this:

Calm, sunny, maybe with a mild west or southwest wind.  No real aggressive south wind at 30mph, pouring rain, and 8ft south swell which is what is expected when it's in the 60s in January in New Jersey.  If you forget the temperature for a moment, the two photographs look like summer: bright sky, calm winds in the morning, and weak and lazy 2ft south windswell.  Boring.

Compare that to weather in the old days, to 1932, when there used to be some real weather a lot more times than not.  The kind of weather that could inspire even the most pale computer addict to feel something and have a reason to look out the window.  I know a lot of people have moods that are dependent on the weather, whether they know it or not.  This is the stuff I miss more and more each passing year:

January 12th, 1932

January 12th, 1932.  A low pressure over Wyoming and a high pressure off the Northeast.  An enormous pressure gradient and wind field.  Gusty south winds from Texas to the Great Lakes to the Hudson Bay to Maine to Florida.  Temperatures 20F to 50F warmer than the previous day in Ontario.  A roaring wind!

You open the door and the air feels light.  It catches your attention, how much warmer it feels than yesterday.  A gusty warm wind hits you in the face as you step onto the porch.  Clouds are zipping across the sky.  Racing clouds.  It feels like its going to pour, the trees are swaying and the air is loud, or maybe like something is about to explode, something big is about to happen. 

You walk to check the beach and you can hear the surf roaring from behind the dunes.  The gusty warm wind feels spooky for January, if the air didn't feel so light it would be hard to walk.  There's a big south swell.  6-8ft short period waves, one after another.  The water is sweeping up the beach, there are whitecaps everywhere, wind, clouds.  The water looks freezing, muddy, brown.  You go to get a coffee and notice people are talking louder, moving faster, are chattier.  There is energy everywhere.  That was January 1932.

The biggest south swell of January 2012 wasn't very big.  Note the person for scale.

Now come back to January 2012 or even to right now.  Go outside.  Not the same.  Right?  A lot more boring I guess.  Think of it like this.  Very simple now.  The south winds job is to move heat to Canada to try and warm it up.  Now if Canada was already warm . . . the south winds would be out of work, wouldn't they?  If Canada is warm there would be no need for south winds to warm it up, it's already warm.  So the south winds are unemployed, there is nothing for them to do.  Since they are unemployed, we don't see them working as much.  Most unemployed people aren't working.  Maybe some odd jobs here and there, sure, but I mean it's not like 1932 anymore when Canada was cold and the south winds were busy.

So what does all of this mean?  It means that you should take time to digest information.  See how it works in your stomach for a bit.  See if you can use it or not, or if you are just content to eat something different once in a while.  I mean this is some out there stuff. 

If you drew a box, this information would be way outside the box.  I can guarantee you never saw anything like this on your television which, incidentally, is also the shape of a box.  That's because when someone had Mickey Mouse make a box for you, it was designed so that anything real would be way out there.  I always find the stuff outside the box to be more interesting. If you're afraid of going outside the box, you could always make your box a little bigger until it fits this stuff.