However, if impatience is allowed to dominate, it’s obvious enough time has already been spent ruminating about what will be. The time for action is now. And it usually is now. By Columbus Day fall fishing is usually into gear, but not this year. A photographer could have passed a postcard of the beach this Columbus Weekend as one from Labor Day Weekend or even Fourth of July Weekend. Unless all the fish are dead, we’re simply not going to have classic fall fishing until we have classic fall weather.
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| Weekly temperature anomalies were warm |
On Sunday the high was 86F under a bright blazing cloudless sky. On Thursday, the mean temperature, which is the average of the high and the low, was equal to the daily average high temperature. Wednesday was the only day with a below average high temperature from Sunday to Saturday and that was only because it was cloudy and the wind was off the ocean- the mean temperature on Wednesday was still well above normal.
On top of that, or under it rather, the water is still warm, so much so that I was comfortable surfing on the 14th in a spring suit which is amazing for this time of year. With the warmth this week not being an isolated event on the calendar (this past summer was the warmest United States summer on record and third warmest locally) it’s really going to take more than a couple cool nights here and there to get things on track.
Big bunker made an appearance just outside the surf. Unfortunately, what usually happens when there is a ten mile chain of bunker is there are not enough predators to make things worthwhile. A couple people scored a few bigger fish off the bunker, but there is always someone scoring a few fish somewhere else. A better bite went down during some northeast wind on Wednesday but was isolated. Our contractor was stoked to catch a bass on bait on Wednesday at our neighbor’s beach. He got the job done using a sputnik sinker and what must have been some sort of ultimate sea weed reducer. The guys I saw clamming the beach that morning looked busy picking junk off their lines that was washing in with the east blow.
After some fun waves on Friday evening, a hard true southwest wind, which is a rare wind direction to have here all day, blew on Saturday. Even with brown water, some bigger bluefish finally pushed the beach in the evening, but I was too far away to get to them in time. This morning I gravitated to where the bluefish came in last night and there were a lot of birds working offshore. With favorable winds the next few days maybe something will happen.
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| Warmth on Sunday was created locally through blazing sunshine, not from advection of a southerly air mass. The air was still and winds were light. |
Perhaps the most exciting thing to happen with fishing this week was the debut of ‘Shoestring Teasers’ made by Donald and I. Basically, Donald is forever thinking and coming up with ideas, and occasionally he comes up with a great one, a gem. The idea was to make a sand eel teaser out of something inexpensive and readily available- something that would poke a little fun at the more detail oriented side of surf fishing. In the fishing subculture there is a tendency for people to sometimes get real ‘into it’. It’s all well and good, because most of the great things we have to fish with are a result of people getting really into it. But it’s still funny to us that people have lengthy conversations about hackle, and deer tail, and wooly buggers, and eyes and they talk about how many times they wrap with a bobby or whatever and we are aiming to catch fish on a shoestring from a pair of sneakers. Donald did not skimp his artistic skills, though, so the teasers look pretty nice after a five second paint job with sharpies and glitter.
Saturday morning was the debut of the Shoestring Teaser and here was the result . . .
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| The Shoestrings Work! |
Bam! First time fishing the Shoestring was a success! Though it was only an 11 inch bluefish it was the only fish taken this morning among my comrades. First Tampon Poppers and now Shoestring Teasers. Welcome to the minds of Donald and I.
