Open discussion: Making sense of the pattern shift

[Dimo]

Thinking through some of the abnormal striper results I’ve been getting (along with others) and the later / colder / wetter seasonal shift made me think about why fish are behaving the way they are and what’s different about their current locations / feeding / etc.

Thoughts? Observations?


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[ronaultmtd]

The extreme weather patterns has thrown us a big fast curveball...16 inches of rain in three weeks has lowered the salinity in the bay dramatically...and the highly stained water reduces visibility and affects the feeding as well as color selections. The fish are in their migrations but may not be feeding in their normal locations or hitting your usual lures and colors...

[Mark]

I think the biggest problem now is stained water which seems to be more prevalent on the western shore of the Bay. I drove over the Severn yesterday on the Rt. 50 bridge and the water still looked brown to me on a sunny day.

What I don't know is if the murky water depresses the feeding of the stripers and perch or if they are simply elsewhere looking for better water conditions. Some posters here who use FF have remarked seeing fish but they cannot get them to bite. I don't have a FF so at least I am not being tormented by electronic indicators that fish are present but ignoring my offerings. All I can say for sure is that my tidal catches have been smaller and less in number than previous years in formerly productive areas in the Patapsco and Severn watersheds.

[yakscientist]

I think in addition to the issues created by water clarity, and I might be reaching for this one but...I think all this runoff is bringing in so much more than just rain obviously. There are a ton of nutrients (N and P primarily, which cause algal blooms), chemicals, tiny pieces of plastic, etc, all things which might be ingested by these fish, or just flowing into their bodies, which surely has an effect on their feeding.

If you ever want to be depressed, look up microplastics and just plastics in our oceans and bays in general, it's scary stuff. And it's not going away anytime soon.

But yes I think certainly the cool weather and abundant rain itself has really impacted our fishery, but all the materials that wash into the Bay with all that rain, I think that might have numerous effects which are a bit harder to determine.

[Big Mike]

I was talking with some folks at the Tackle Box and they’ve all switched to crankbaits this spring to entice the rockfish. Clearly looking to create vibration and flash to give the fish something to key on. While I’m still catching some on paddletails I’ll be trolling X-Raps and Rattletraps as well to see if this is working better.

[ronaultmtd]

Be careful Mike...I had my last CNR on black and silver XR12 ($13.99) Rapala XRap...took me a while to retrieve my lure with Owner 4/0 single barbless in-line replacement hooks...if the lure had trebles it would have been a lost cause

[Big Mike]

Be careful Mike...I had my last CNR on black and silver XR12 ($13.99) Rapala XRap...took me a while to retrieve my lure with Owner 4/0 single barbless in-line replacement hooks...if the lure had trebles it would have been a lost cause

I like to live life on the ragged edge. That and some of my crankbaits have been in my tackle box for decades, so if I punk up a CNR, oh well.

[Saltrodder]

On the topic of plastics, a recent documentary stated that almost 100% of all the plastics ever produced in the world are still with us today, either still in use, resting in landfills, litter, or are floating in the oceans!