5 posts on weather.
No study has measured whether striped bass bite better during or after an ordinary rain. What has been measured is a flood that sent tagged Hudson River bass out of the estuary for months, and young herring that leave their home streams in short pulses that rain and rising water can set off.
5 min read
An onshore wind really does move the top of the water toward the beach, but at a few percent of the wind's speed, slower than a feeding bunker school cruises. We found no study of striped bass feeding against wind direction, and good surfcasters disagree about the rule. What holds up is the surf the wind builds on your own beach.
5 min read
There is no primary study of barometric pressure and striped bass. The studies that do exist are freshwater work on other fish in lakes, and the best-controlled of them found nothing. Two studies widely quoted for the rule do not exist at the sources given, and the best-attested coastal result has predators leaving ahead of a drop rather than feeding.
3 min read
Half the beach goes home when the surf turns to chocolate milk and the other half says that is exactly when to stay. The measurements are real — on smallmouth, largemouth, bluegill, sablefish and larval stripers — and they point to light, not mud, as the thing to watch.
4 min read
Two of New England's most experienced surfcasters, working different water and never citing each other, describe the same storm sequence in three phases — and both say the same phase is the one nobody fishes.
3 min read
