Cameras are everywhere these days. Like it or not, the whole world has one.
It may be resting on your bureau back home, in your tackle bag, or on your cell phone, but admit it, you got a lens. Still not everyone is happy about you having it. Some folks are afraid of cameras.
We all love having a full quiver of trout rods. You know everything from a 2-weight on up to an 8-weight. Man, we’re proud on our collection. Damn right we are. Now do we really need all of them? Well that’s a different story.
Fact is for the vast majority of our time on small to medium size streams, two trout rods do it all. Yup, and the rest of the rods idle back home. At least that is how I see it. What two rods you ask? A 6-weight and a 4-weight. They handle everything from a fair size streamer to a 22 dry.
I’m known for hauling around a Nikon DLSR. Yeah, its a chunk, a D700, big, heavy, and mighty long in the tooth. How long? It was released in 2008! Now don’t turn up your nose. Damn thing does a stellar job. Really.
For a long time, friends have laughingly suggested I get something smaller, something you could stick in my pocket. Well I did. After drawn out research, I got a Olympus Tough. Fine camera, durable, versatile, shockproof, waterproof, built-in flash, GPS, Wi-Fi, RAW files, does tele and wide, video, yes closeups too, just loaded with features. And small. So small the thing disappeared! I couldn’t find it for the life of me. Eventually I threw my hands up and wrote it off as totally lost to the ages. Then two days back, bang, it popped up under a pile of junk in the bottom of my closet. Will I use it? Maybe.
Back in 2022 I penned a post with the same title. Well frankly I’m still scratching my noggin about weather. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know New England weather is notoriously unpredictable. Still it does seems things are getting extremely odd. Yup, the weather worries me.
Enough Whining – Blue Skies Ahead
Last year, La Nina had us by the short hairs. The mercury was a roller coaster ride, up and down, with a red hot, dry summer. Yet the coming winter proved a complete surprise? It was the coldest in over 15 years, with over 52 inches of snow and average temperatures running five degrees below normal. Ummm. Where is my damn shovel?
Right now the spring is yucky, mucky – grey, cool, damp, and wet. Primo conditions if you’re a salamander. Yet the long-term forecast is the exact opposite! By May into summer, we could be 3 or more degrees above norm. Enough whining – blue skies ahead!
If you love striped bass like I do, you should be concerned. Despite a decent number of striped bass of spawning age, striper success on the spawning ground is d1smal, both in the Chesapeake Bay and in the Hudson River. If this continues it is apt to have a major effect on the striped bass population in the next few years.
The chart below shows the stark reality in the Bay. The average spawn index is eleven, a number we have not reached since 2019. Instead, we have 7 years of very poor success. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that is problem.
Meanwhile to the north in the Hudson, there have been three failed years. In February the New York Department of Environmental Conservation stated serious concerns about the striped bass population’s future, remarking this spawning issue could reduce the number of bass on the coast by 1930.
Together, the Hudson River and the Chesapeake Bay account for roughly 90 percent of the bass on the coasts. When both are in trouble, face it we are in trouble. Why is this all happening? At this time there is no definitive answer, although many suggest it is effect of climate change on the spawning grounds. Can AI solve this?
