Doug and I, mostly Doug, nailed a sessions worth of bait in 6 or 7 casts with the Sabiki rig for use at night. I was using a metal and small teaser, but the herring really wanted those dart things, which left me and an angler to the north without a fish on the beach. I eventually got one as soon as I put the Sabiki on, we left since we had enough, and the angler to the north took our spot and remained fishless. Who are those kids that came onto the beach at 6:30am, caught a bunch of fish in ten minutes, and just as quickly left? Is what that guy must have been saying.
Chunking the fresh herring out that night during the wrong tide with a shallow shelfy bottom not surprisingly produced no fish. From speaking with other friendly fisherman, the information I absorbed is that the sharks are out, perhaps kind of like how the bass stayed out this spring. There was mention of a good bite where there is better access to deeper water just off the beach, and the offshore areas have been producing a good number. I was very fortunate to have some new ideas enter my brain and things are brewing about how to finally score a good bite this summer.
 |
| A very fun fill-in swell and water like North Carolina was a nice July combination. Notice how gigantic the beach is. I bet that since there is no outer bar to dissipate the wave energy, when we get a storm again all of that beach will go right out. |
As far as the weather, you and I, right now, are living through a very significant national drought event that is ranking with the country's most legendary droughts in the 1930s and 1950s. Unless you are bulimic or anorexic, or have an abundance of and ambivalence to money, the increased and possibly increasing price of food has surely been or will become noticeable. In New Jersey we are on the borderline, so other than food and your extrasensory ability to be aware of the drought several states away, there have been enough gusty thunderstorms to keep it wet enough here.
If you look at a timeline of the 1930s Dust Bowl, and then at a graph of global temperature, and then back to the 1930s Dust Bowl, and then back to global temperature you may notice global temperature warmed really quickly from the 1920s through the 1930s- and the Dust Bowl happened during that time:
 |
| The atmosphere warmed really quickly from the 1920s through the 1940s- the first year global temperature was above the 20th century average was 1937. The worst Dust Bowl years were 1934, 1936, and 1939. Something was up with the atmosphere in the 1930s. |
