Oracles

in antiquity, there were oracles who prophesied the future, divined by the gods.  later, in the 1500s, there was Nostradamus.  today, there are meteorologists who prophesize based on science. isn't it amazing how often meteorologists get it wrong?  if there is one thing i have learned in my career/life, it's that past performance is not indicative of future results.

it's amazing how much we anglers depend on the weather.  we study, we prepare, we make journal entries, all in the hope that we can decipher not only when to go fishing, but how the weather helps or hurts our success.

my plan was to go out fishing on the yak by 4:30 AM this past saturday.  the sunrises at around 5:45, so it gave me about an hour of fishing in the dark.  there is so much bunker around, and with the recent cooler temperatures, i thought it would be ideal setup for catching some stripers.

i check weather.com and wunderground.com for weather daily (it's amazing how they differ sometimes).  for saturday morning, it predicted a 20% chance of rain all day, and wind of around 6 mph out of east.

i woke up around 3:15 AM, did my 'business', packed up and left around 4:00.  i arrived at the launch site, and was prepared to launch when i noticed a stiff breeze.  i ignored it, hopped in the kayak, and started paddling, i then noticed all the noise.  all the boats that were docked at their slips were rocking about and occasionally bumping into the sides of their slips.  i thought that it was pretty weird, because 6 mph is essentially no wind.  each time i've gone out in similar wind situations, the water has been like glass.  i checked my weather apps again, and there had been no change from the night before.  wind around 7 mph.

as i paddled out of the protected area into open water, i saw tiny little whitecaps.  what the whaaa?  i decided to check the western long island sound weather buoy for wind data.  the wind was 17 mph with gusts up to 22 mph. okay, that made so much more sense.

i thought about it for a few minutes, and decided to paddle back to the car.  it wasn't worth it to fish in that scenario.  i try not to kayak in winds greater than 15 mph because paddling the freedomhawk in that kind of wind is a chore, and setting up a good drift is next to impossible.  i also convinced myself that the bait would be pushed down a bit, so i wouldn't be able to find them.

since i was up so early, i ended up going to a local park on the water, and fishing off a point.  i caught one snapper blue (didn't take a picture) on a kastmaster, had another one chase down my skitter pop (amazing that i didn't hook up there), and another one bite off the tail of my storm wildeye shad pearl.

anyways, on the leeward side of the point, there were a bunch of silversides.  every time a twig or something floated by, they would hurdle it as if it were fun.  never seen that before.

it's my son's first birthday party this weekend.  i've been crazy preparing for it.  hopefully i  can get out on the kayak soon since i've heard there are some bruiser blues out there.

until then, stay salty. XXA