Outdoors: Wet, wild weather making fishing impossible to accurately predict
Featured Business » .By BOB SAMPSON
For The Norwich Bulletin
Posted Mar 31, 2010 @ 08:38 PM
As of this writing, soils are saturated like a wet sponge, so each additional drop of rain helps send every river, stream and rill in the region over their banks covering fields, roads and property. It is a consequence periodically suffered by those stupid enough to build in floodplains, which naturally temper floods.
Gardner Lake Dam was inches away from overflowing late Tuesday afternoon. The heavy rains falling were supposed to do so for at least another half a day, creating a potentially lethal condition for anyone living near Gardner Lake Brook, where it flows along Route 163 into Fitchville Pond. Local TV stations predicted record flows on the Yantic River that would be equivalent to or higher than, the floods of 1982, which was a hundred-year event.
In 1982, I was doing aerial survey work that involved flying low and slow along the Connecticut coast in a Cessna 172, to count recreational fishing boats and anglers and sometimes waterfowl.
As the four-seat plane approached Lyme, the Connecticut River stuck out like a coffee-colored streak of paint all the way across Long Island Sound to Plum Gut, where it has maintained a trench from there to the continental shelf (at Block Island Canyon) since the glaciers melted away about 20,000 years ago.
A week after the 1982 rains ended, the Connecticut River could be seen pushing its mud-stained, flood-stage waters halfway across the sound and still influencing salinity levels and tides.
This week’s floods were of similar magnitude. For this reason there’s not much in the way of fishing news to report in this week’s column other than the fact that the fluke season has been set to run from May 15 through Aug. 25, with a three-fish-per-day creel limit and minimum length of 19.5 inches.
Some good news is, for a change, Rhode Island has the same minimum length this year. New York had not been set at this time, but rumors indicated minimum length is going to be 21 inches.
Fluke need to be managed regionally to end these regulatory differences between neighboring states.
This week, anglers stayed home to pump wet basements and catch water droplets from leaky roofs.
Fortunately, most residents live high enough above rivers and streams to avoid severe flood damage, though locally, many were not so fortunate, with the most-affected finding water lapping against homes and businesses Tuesday afternoon.
Warming
From an angler’s point of view, one good thing is these flooding rains fell at a temperature warmer than surface waters had been after last weekend’s cold spell.
Places I checked since the storm were the same temperature as the rain, about 49 degrees. This means lake and river temperatures throughout the region will be at or slightly below that all-important 50-degree level, above which area fish seem to come to life every spring. Give lakes and rivers a few days for water levels to subside and the sun a chance to perform its springtime magic and area fishermen should begin to experience some excellent bass, panfish and striped bass action within the next week or 10 days.
Sunny, hot weather has been predicted from mid-week through Easter Sunday, with daytime temperatures possibly setting record highs.
The region has been on a weather roller coaster ride for more than a year, with constant rains, high winds and wild temperature fluctuations being the norm.
During my 38-year tenure as a columnist for the Norwich Bulletin, there have been stretches, even decades, when it was possible to accurately predict within a few days either side of a specific date, when an event on the fishing calendar would probably occur, with great confidence.
Not any more. Everything is too extreme and fast-changing.
Different words
The margin of error when predicting runs of fish more than a few days or weeks in advance has been expanding since the turn of the last century, one reason it’s wise to avoid using words such as “always” or “never” when dealing with weather.
Words such as “maybe,” “should” and “possibly” are more appropriate when trying to predict fishing in advance of writing a column or report.
However, if weather predictions are on the mark this week, the sun will be blazing by today and the weekend should be down-right tropical.
Depending on how much rain has fallen between the writing and publishing of this column, fishing in local lakes and ponds should improve drastically by this weekend.
The Thames River, which stabilizes much faster than the Connecticut River, should begin producing good-to-excellent schoolie striper action from Norwich to Montville by this coming weekend or certainly by the April 17 trout season opener.
White perch have been hitting well in the rivers’ larger coves for more than two weeks now. This species will continue to be active as long as water temperatures remain cool during and after their spawning.
The Connecticut River, which drains snowmelt from the mountains in northern Vermont, will be muddy for a week or more, but should begin turning on for spring striper once it stabilizes.
Right now, in its coves and backwaters, there is a transition taking place as yellow perch surpass white perch as the dominant panfish species. Yellows are ending their spawning season and white perch are beginning theirs.
If temperatures approach the 70s, as predicted, it should be good fishing by Good Friday — especially in shallow lakes, such as Pachaug Pond and Bog Meadows — better fishing by Saturday and the best, after the fabled bunny disappears on Easter Sunday
Featured Business » .By BOB SAMPSON
For The Norwich Bulletin
Posted Mar 31, 2010 @ 08:38 PM
As of this writing, soils are saturated like a wet sponge, so each additional drop of rain helps send every river, stream and rill in the region over their banks covering fields, roads and property. It is a consequence periodically suffered by those stupid enough to build in floodplains, which naturally temper floods.
Gardner Lake Dam was inches away from overflowing late Tuesday afternoon. The heavy rains falling were supposed to do so for at least another half a day, creating a potentially lethal condition for anyone living near Gardner Lake Brook, where it flows along Route 163 into Fitchville Pond. Local TV stations predicted record flows on the Yantic River that would be equivalent to or higher than, the floods of 1982, which was a hundred-year event.
In 1982, I was doing aerial survey work that involved flying low and slow along the Connecticut coast in a Cessna 172, to count recreational fishing boats and anglers and sometimes waterfowl.
As the four-seat plane approached Lyme, the Connecticut River stuck out like a coffee-colored streak of paint all the way across Long Island Sound to Plum Gut, where it has maintained a trench from there to the continental shelf (at Block Island Canyon) since the glaciers melted away about 20,000 years ago.
A week after the 1982 rains ended, the Connecticut River could be seen pushing its mud-stained, flood-stage waters halfway across the sound and still influencing salinity levels and tides.
This week’s floods were of similar magnitude. For this reason there’s not much in the way of fishing news to report in this week’s column other than the fact that the fluke season has been set to run from May 15 through Aug. 25, with a three-fish-per-day creel limit and minimum length of 19.5 inches.
Some good news is, for a change, Rhode Island has the same minimum length this year. New York had not been set at this time, but rumors indicated minimum length is going to be 21 inches.
Fluke need to be managed regionally to end these regulatory differences between neighboring states.
This week, anglers stayed home to pump wet basements and catch water droplets from leaky roofs.
Fortunately, most residents live high enough above rivers and streams to avoid severe flood damage, though locally, many were not so fortunate, with the most-affected finding water lapping against homes and businesses Tuesday afternoon.
Warming
From an angler’s point of view, one good thing is these flooding rains fell at a temperature warmer than surface waters had been after last weekend’s cold spell.
Places I checked since the storm were the same temperature as the rain, about 49 degrees. This means lake and river temperatures throughout the region will be at or slightly below that all-important 50-degree level, above which area fish seem to come to life every spring. Give lakes and rivers a few days for water levels to subside and the sun a chance to perform its springtime magic and area fishermen should begin to experience some excellent bass, panfish and striped bass action within the next week or 10 days.
Sunny, hot weather has been predicted from mid-week through Easter Sunday, with daytime temperatures possibly setting record highs.
The region has been on a weather roller coaster ride for more than a year, with constant rains, high winds and wild temperature fluctuations being the norm.
During my 38-year tenure as a columnist for the Norwich Bulletin, there have been stretches, even decades, when it was possible to accurately predict within a few days either side of a specific date, when an event on the fishing calendar would probably occur, with great confidence.
Not any more. Everything is too extreme and fast-changing.
Different words
The margin of error when predicting runs of fish more than a few days or weeks in advance has been expanding since the turn of the last century, one reason it’s wise to avoid using words such as “always” or “never” when dealing with weather.
Words such as “maybe,” “should” and “possibly” are more appropriate when trying to predict fishing in advance of writing a column or report.
However, if weather predictions are on the mark this week, the sun will be blazing by today and the weekend should be down-right tropical.
Depending on how much rain has fallen between the writing and publishing of this column, fishing in local lakes and ponds should improve drastically by this weekend.
The Thames River, which stabilizes much faster than the Connecticut River, should begin producing good-to-excellent schoolie striper action from Norwich to Montville by this coming weekend or certainly by the April 17 trout season opener.
White perch have been hitting well in the rivers’ larger coves for more than two weeks now. This species will continue to be active as long as water temperatures remain cool during and after their spawning.
The Connecticut River, which drains snowmelt from the mountains in northern Vermont, will be muddy for a week or more, but should begin turning on for spring striper once it stabilizes.
Right now, in its coves and backwaters, there is a transition taking place as yellow perch surpass white perch as the dominant panfish species. Yellows are ending their spawning season and white perch are beginning theirs.
If temperatures approach the 70s, as predicted, it should be good fishing by Good Friday — especially in shallow lakes, such as Pachaug Pond and Bog Meadows — better fishing by Saturday and the best, after the fabled bunny disappears on Easter Sunday