1. Troutnut Forum
›
2. Fly Fishing
›
3. Crazy Weather

Last weekend I was out walking the banks of a pond about a mile from my house in shorts and a t-shirt, catching bluegills on Woolly Buggers and even a few up top on an Elk Hair Caddis. For about four days straight, the air temperature got up into the upper 70s or 80s and it was bright sunny. Most of the trees budded out, the flowers had about all come up, and everybody around here was getting pretty well convinced that summer had come in the middle of March.

Fast forward one week, to yesterday. When I pull out of my drive-way to drive about an hour south and west to a little wild trout creek that I like to fish, there is about 4" of snow on the ground. The temperature is hovering right around freezing. There was less snow further south on the stream I was fishing as the temperature was warmer, but the stream was high and a little off-color from snow-melt. The temperature barely cracked 40 degrees, and I am afraid to say that as far as I could see, not even a single caddis-fly came off the water. The fishing was still passably good with a Hare's Ear Nymph, but goodness gracious it was an adjustment from the 80 degree days.

Is it just here, or is anyone else dealing with some crazy weather right now?

MO, we got HAMMERED with 10 inches of snow last Wednesday! The previous snow had almost all finally melted away and then BLAMMO, winter comes back again one more cruel time! I had to shovel out my driveway on Thursday...I was really, REALLY hoping to have a crack at some bluegills and crappies myself in a lake in my hometown downstate this past weekend, BUT NO, it's been way too cold and I don't even think the ice is off the lake yet! By this time last year and the year before I was already nailing 'em on chartreuse Woolly Buggers and KBFs...I went to visit a buddy of mine who lives on a lake on Saturday evening, and on Sunday morning the lake was still COMPLETELY frozen over. I had thoughts of early season pike cruising the shallows...they may have been, but I couldn't get to them with a fly rod!!

I am glad to hear that you've been out after the panfish, it gives me hope. But our 10-day weather forecast hardly even makes it into the upper 40s around here. Now watch, we'll have two weeks of nice spring weather and then it'll get HOT. I don't know about you, but I DO believe in climate change. Things are just getting wacky, last summer was ungodly HOT and then we have this LOOOOOOOONG winter with really heavy snow. I went cross-country skiing 14 days in a row in December, and that's a personal record! Yet a few years ago I was WET-WADING downstate (Huron River in Ann Arbor) the THIRD WEEK OF OCTOBER. Tell me something isn't completely out of whack!?!?

I just hope it gets warm here one of these days and I can go out and ride my mountain bike - I have MANY extra winter pounds to burn off this year!

Jonathon

I also believe in climate change... It's hard not to these days.

Last summer was the hottest we have had in a very long time-we're talking week-long stretches of 100 degree + days. And this winter was the coldest and snowiest that we have had in at least a decade, maybe more. We had more sub-zero temperatures and 5"+ snowfalls than I can ever remember. And a significant accumulating snow-fall occurring right at the end of March is just about unheard of here, but that just happened on Saturday.

Hopefully you can get out there and chase the bluegills and crappies fairly soon. I figure it will be at least a week or so until the warm-water stuff will be much good again here with the weather we have been having.

I'll be heading back downstate to spend the Easter weekend with my family, so I'll have another chance at that lake. It's almost guaranteed to be good by then, barring three more weeks of cold weather! The bass should be quite active by then as well. A couple of years ago in May I jumped a 5-pounder in there! Spit my KBF out almost at my feet...

There is another early-season possibility up here at the mouth of a river on Lake Huron, not too far away. Our Michigan DNR Weekly Fishing Report says that anglers are casting off of "icebergs" washed up on shore (yeah, I know, that sounds tricky...). I am thinking of launching streamers into the surf with my 8-weight for steelhead and lake-run browns. Who knows, I might actually catch one! I even had a dream last night about catching a big brown...a premonition?

Jonathon

"I even had a dream last night about catching a big brown...a premonition?"

Only one way to find out...

Saw what might have been a big dude hanging out behind a school of suckers on the lower Au Sable yesterday...the fish of my dreams? Or just a rock or log? Didn't take my binoculars so I'm not sure. Of course, lobbing a fly at it might help figure it out...I'll let you know. Seeing the suckers, first time this year, was a good sign!

Jonathon

It's March.

Well, it's APRIL now, and our weather is still FREAKIN' COLD. I went out on the Tawas pier today to get the latest from about three dozen fisherman - guys soaking minnows on the bottom for walleye - and there has been next to no activity to report. I wisely left the 8-weight in the car, not the least because of the fierce cold wind blowing in from off the bay - I don't need a 3/0 or 6/0 hook stuck in my face or the back of my head! We need a serious warm spell to make it worth while, not to mention comfortable and SAFE. There might be fish out there, but they're not gonna bite until conditions get warmer. I can cure Cabin Fever with a walk down to the river without a fishing rod - kicked up two woodcock today and have been enjoying seeing the buffleheads bobbing for food, buds swelling on the red maples and elms...but fishing? That can wait a little while longer until the damned ice and snow go away for good and the fishies wake up and feel hunger again!

In about a month, though, it will be time to throw #12-14 Light Hendricksons & Elkhair Caddis at brookies and browns. And, there's Easter weekend downstate in Troy throwing those #10 silver/grey KBFs and chartreuse Woolly Buggers at 'gills & crappie, maybe even the bass who should be awake by then too...and/or pike cruising the shallows off my friends' dock on Cooley lake? All good things come to those who wait!

Jonathon

33 degrees in Traverse City, Michigan with snow coming sideways... hard to imagine Hendricksons just a few weeks away....

Now watch, two weeks from now it'll go up into the 80s...

Jonathon

I've been hearing "crazy weather" for years. Seems it's always that, when it doesn't meet out expectations. Maybe "crazy" is a nice way to say "&%$#^% weather!!"

One time I got a chance to ask a real expert, an atmospheric research scientist, who's thing was climate/weather patterns about "crazy weather". How would we know? He chuckled and said that we couldn't. We only have decent weather records going back a short time, climatically speaking. There are patterns, but stuff most people just aren't hip to and even the experts have a hard time predicting at any useful resolution. He did leave me with these sage ballpark estimates though:

"March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb."

"April showers bring May flowers." (Unless you live in a different biome)

"When the wind is from the west(etc.), the fishing's ..."

I know that doesn't help. The only cure is happily rising trout and us happily (and hopefully comfortably) casting to them.

In our case out here in California, that friggin' Lion was roaring all month! April is starting out good though. "Normal" is a statistical average based on a snapshot in geologic time. I've never experienced a "normal" year and the stats bear that out. I was born to the worst flooding in our history (I just hope the place doesn't burn down when I check out). :) In the land of "Fruits & Nuts" it seems anybody with the scientific understanding of a marsupial and access to a mic can be heard screaming "the end of the world is near" before scrambling back to their pouch. One famous clothing designer recently announced if we don't do something about it, Los Angeles will be "uninhabitable within 20 yrs!". An argument can be made it's been that for at least the last 20 already.:)

regards,

Kurt

I'm no climate scientist, though I am certainly a scientist, and actually do have more understanding of natural phenomena than a marsupial who fell out of the pouch (or Spence's trained mouse). And I can certainly say that there are established patterns of weather that seem to have gone completely out the window in the past decade or so. This has been the longest freaking winter I can remember (I had to walk through long stretches with 8" of snow in some places today!), which followed one of the hottest summers I can remember. Sure, I've seen plenty of late winter/early spring snow storms in March and April, but there's usually some WARM weather proceeding them (making their arrival all the more shocking). Well, we've had NONE, and I sure can't remember a March here in Michigan without at least one really nice warm spell by this time, but NOT this year. And our Winter began early, I went cross-country skiing 14 days in a row last December and I've NEVER done that before! Yet last summer set all kinds of records, geez Moscow hit 100F and we weren't much below that here in MI for much of the summer. Nevertheless, in previous years I was WET WADING the third week of OCTOBER in the Huron River and there were questions as to whether the leaves were all going to fall by Thanksgiving...

Weather patterns seem to be getting more extreme and chaotic and less predictable. Why wouldn't they, when we've denuded larger and larger areas of forest around the globe every passing year, and so many scientists (climate and otherwise) agree that large forested areas moderate weather patterns? Not to mention the ongoing expansion of deserts around the world. And I won't even bother getting into an argument over anthropogenic carbon inputs to the atmosphere, that would do nothing but devolve into a political pissing contest...

Of course, there's those that believe we are "just still coming out of the last Ice Age". Which ignores strong evidence that there was a dramatic WARMING immediately following that Ice Age, not to mention intermittent cooling periods...

As far as climate science goes, it isn't just during the time since the invention of the thermometer that we can see what's going on with climate patterns. There is a science called dendrochronology, which looks at tree growth rings to interpret long-term climate patterns, and there are trees that have been alive for over 4500 years (bristlecone pines in western Nevada, among others) so there's 45 CENTURIES of data. Not to mention pollen cores from bogs which go all the way back TO that last Ice Age showing vegetation patterns, and even Antarctic ice cores which can go back hundreds of THOUSANDS of years - that's SEVERAL ice ages ago! Heck, bubbles in amber (fossilized tree & plant resins) can go back even further! But, I digress...

All I want is some REAL F*CKING SPRING so I can throw some flies without having to walk through piles of icy slop just to get to some open water!

Jonathon

P.S. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico cleaned itself all up and radiation is actually good for you (according to Ann Coulter).

Yeah, I have to admit it's been a nasty one. We've got 50 ft. of snow in our mountains just waiting to melt... It's gonna be a helluva ride down the river! But look on the bright side. At least the PA & NY boys have a good shot at seeing Quill Gordons during the season. In Schwiebert's last writings he lamented that the warming climate had made them all hatch before the season started. Don't have to worry about that this year! Brrrr!

Good posts, guys. Kurt, you had me chuckling. Jonathan, you have me feeling rather sober.

A good time to get my azz back to work.

Didn't mean to go off too harshly on the climate thing, folks, just cranky that our coldness is lingering. I did, however, take a nice long sunny walk through the "backyard" yesterday and discovered a new (to me) trail that ties in with one I had previously hiked so it makes a nice big loop. There were, sadly, portions that still had that 8" of snow on them and walking through it was none too pleasant (had to shake snow out of one boot at least a dozen times), plus some now flooded areas that I didn't even know were ponds and small creeks because they were under two feet of snow the previous times I was out there (mostly on x/c skis). But it was beautiful, more wildflowers are beginning to poke out from under the melting snow (though not blooming yet, that will take more warmth, although skunk cabbasge WAS blooming), the variety of distinct habitats and forest types continues to amaze me, and best of all I found a good-sized lake (20 acres or more?) that, if it has any depth to it and doesn't just turn into a giant marsh in summer, could be bass or pike water! And looking at aerial photography (Mapquest and Google Earth) it looks like there are dirt roads which, if passable by my little car (Chevy Cobalt), could be access routes for kayak launching...BASS BUGS AWAY!!!

And, I need to start tying up some fresh Light Hendricksons and maybe some Red Quills for the upcoming opener (end of April here in MI). Plus those silver/gray KBFs and chartreuse WBs for downstate, the ice SHOULD be gone by Easter weekend...

Jonathon