Eve of the 2013 Sharking Season

Finally the water has warmed up after all the south winds in June, meaning sharking is within the realm of possibility.  Along with the very warm water, the rays showed up en masse this week.  The creatures put on a show of 'fins' and wakes in the surf that a casual observer would have assumed was a shark invasion without further investigation.  Though rays are not sharks, I believe they are in the same family, and it has been said that rays and sharks often travel together.  It also looks like a shoal of sand eels is in tight to the beach.  I'm not sure if sharks eat sand eels, but what they are certainly good for is attracting higher members of the food chain.

The full moon- my favorite moon- is on Monday.  This makes the best tides for sharking from Sunday through Thursday.  That evening/early night high tide is enough reason to fish, but of course there are the other variables as always.  With the forecast as it is right now, I will offer what I think about these variables and how they relate to the possible productivity of the fishing.

Surf height forecast:

The surf forecast looks so-so.  I prefer flat or a very small swell, weak enough so that using a 4oz sinker is is possible.  It's not like I have been sharking for a hundred years, but all of the crazy nights happened when it was flat or with a small swell and not much happened when it was rougher.  Monday looks like the best day given the forecast, while the surf on Wednesday is close to the larger threshold.  Overall, it looks like it will be possible to fish on most days with just some inconvenience from the surf.

Wind forecast:

 



 

The water was very warm last week, but the south-southwest winds today may cool it down some.  But the lighter north wind on Sunday and an east wind on Monday are excellent for warming the water.  Given the surf height and east wind forecast, Monday is looking like the best night so far.  Southy winds are back on Tuesday and Wednesday, but may remain light enough so as not to disturb the water too much.

Thunderstorms forecast:

Many a fishable night with excellent conditions has been lost to the thunderstorm.  It's not that the fish care about thunderstorms, it's that setting the hook with a graphite rod pointed straight into the air during an electrical storm on an open beach is really not a good move.  Lightning is serious, and the thing about summer thunderstorms is that once they get to the ocean they can start to move in weird directions or slow down or build back and this is especially the case when upper-level steering currents are weak.  A bite last year was aborted due to an approaching thunderstorm.  It really sucks to have to leave the beach when you're getting hit by sharks, but I still think that's better than getting hit by lightning.

The thunderstorm forecast looks fairly typical for this time of the year, being 30-40% chances.  So that means it's always something to be aware of, but it's not worth cancelling an event until it's about time to go because the chances are also fairly good that the night will be clear and the thunderstorms will be somewhere else.  With a forecast like this, the call for whether to fish or not to fish has to be decided at nearly the last minute.

If Monday has the smaller surf, east winds, and if electrical bolts aren't being hurled from the sky it might be a pretty good night.  Thursday is my second choice.  As always, this is subject to change.  It's not because those in weather "never know anything" or "the weatherman never get it right" it's because the short-term weather forecast is constructed by the input of a vast number of atmospheric variables, and even with the huge quantity of input it is quite impossible to entirely model the atmosphere since it is impossible to collect every atmospheric variable at every location on earth at every second.  So I'm impressed the short-term forecasts are as accurate as they are taking into account all the data gaps, but that is just my take on it.

Hopefully there will finally be some pictures of fish coming soon.  Enough of the lean times!