We'll we're moving into the New Year and with that the unknown arrival of a true winter. Winters used to mean really cold temps and an abundant snow fall. Snow is good. It's another form of precipitation like rain, it's just rains when it's colder. Snow is good for many things. when it snows up in the mountains it leads to a good runoff into the rivers and bays during the spring warmup. It leads to an increased volume of water, and for anadromous fishes a good balance of suitable spawning waters. For striped bass that runoff, along with other conditions, keep the salt lines where they should be which allows for egg and larva survival. Drought like conditions during the spring spawning runs can kill a years class of fish. Add to that runoff from industrial, residential and commercial properties along those spawning waters, like the Chesapeake, and you can see why striped bass numbers are low. Pesticides and waste water runoff can chase or kill off spawning fish from natal waters. That's all for another debate. But healthy waters are good for fishes, and fishermen.
There's also debate on striped bass spawning locations. By the science we know the Chesapeake, Hudson, and Delaware Rivers are the primary spawning waters for striped bass. There may be a few that are Roanoke fish and a sprinkling of other rivers, but again, that's up for debate. But to have a successful spawn, you need to have fish present. And that's where this theory or question of mine comes into view.
Winters used to be cold. We used to get snow, and a lot of it at times. Below is a chart of the recent years snow fall totals in Central Park, NYC. Outside of a flukish year we can see a reduction in snow
fall totals over the last say 15 years. Is it global warming? Are our winters more mild? Do we await the arrival of "winter" far past New Years Day. We see late January into February as the snowy months followed by that anomaly of a late March or April blizzard. Then it's gone.
So what about the striped bass? We are in the heated debates on why the numbers are down. Are we killing too many fish? Does the slot need to go from 28" to 28.25" with one fish on odd days of the week? Well what if there are enough striped bass out there but they just aren't returning to spawn each spring as we think they should. Have a combination of environmental conditions created them to have a "choice" greater than their natural urges to reproduce? And why do I ask this?
Do you remember 2012 when we were fly fishing for striped bass in February (above)?. We had that crab bite that followed the 2011 fall sand eel insanity. The striped were here, and they
stayed. Well looking back to the YOY surveys in the Chesapeake we can see low recruitment numbers the following springs, until a bounce back in 2015. Look at the snow fall totals for 2011-2012, 7.4 inches. It was warm out. I think the fish just stayed put, rather then make the trip to spawn. An don't forget a year without snow isn't good for the water conditions to maximize spawning.
We see a growing trend in fishing places like the Raritan Bay in the spring. Well, let's increase that to the New York Bight, an area from southern New Jersey out to say Montauk in Long Island. When March 1st rolls around and the season opens in the bays and rivers it's game on. Large numbers of fish that are voracious in their eating habits. No more are they just taking clams and worms soaked on the late day mud flats. They chew flies, plugs, jigs, metal, just about anything you can throw at them, and much earlier then in the past.
These fish aren't just showing up and chewing. They are Hudson fish that are staging for the migration up to and around Albany, New York, and MAY be Chesapeake and Delaware fish that have "taken the year off" and stayed in the New York Bight to winter over. Up north in the Housatonic and Connecticut Rivers bass stay put there a well. That can be said for many of the rivers up and down the East Coast if deeper waters that can hold bass exist.
In a 2012 report from the NY DEC and Stony Brook University they looked at many indicators of waters in the NY Bight throughout the year, including water temperature trends. They have found an increase since the
1980's. While the trends are just a few degrees, the trend is a warming one. Look below and you can see the data as found by the researchers. In 2004 the sea surface temperature in the NY Bight was about 42
degrees. In 2020 is was nearly 48 degrees. I just picked those two to paint a picture, you can look above and see there have been lower and higher temps through the years. But if I'm a striped bass and 45 degrees is my "I'm outta here" cutoff, then these warming trends may have bass stay put, or at least skip a year or two and not travel to spawn. These fish, say a Delaware fish, doesn't stay put and then just go up the Hudson to spawn because it's closer. They have eggs and milt that just gets released or absorbed and that "stuff" pretty much goes to waste for that year. Now, if they do make the migration to their natal rivers, and the environmental conditions suck, well then you may have poor YOY numbers.
Add to the above theory an increase in the health of the bays and rivers, overall, and you have better numbers as far as forage fishes, crustaceans, and grasses. A healthy ecosystem can give reason for change in fishes behaviors. Just look at the bunker. We often see pods of them in the bays and rivers in the dead of winter. And we all know bass love bunker.
As I write this fishing for striped bass is really good in south Jersey. From Wildwood south those anglers are getting into good fishing, of course better from the boats. In northern waters we are picking at the smaller, what we call, resident fish, with a keeper or two mixed in. In a few days the back bays and rivers will be closed until March 1st. I believe those fish that have decided to stay will stay, hoping for a mild winter, as we have seen in the trends over the years. I wish I could see the fish finders today if boats were to pass over the reaches and channels in the bays and rivers of the New York Bight. I think we would all be surprised at how many fish are there right now.
If you're looking for love then you have to go log in to a dating website or make you're way to the bar. You can't find love sitting on your couch, or for a bass, wintering over far away from your natal river. This is just my theory on why our YOY numbers may be trending down.
