with the mild winter we are having and the matching warmer water temps i wonder if it will make for an "early" spring run. got to figure the plankton bloom will be early and that kind of triggers everything. just wonder if it will translate down the food chain. just daydreaming about fish again. hey old guys :1poke: do warm winters have early runs?

I've always thought the migration was influenced by the amount of daylight and not the water or air temps. I think PIEMMA posted something recently about this, as well. Either way, I'm not complaining about the mild winter.

good question i was just thinking about the herring,temps and daylight could be relevant also think of the biolodgical clocks ,how do the birds know when to come back etc.

A post from the Mid-West where it was 62 degrees yesterday.

Everything I have read says the Bass are phototropic. This means they react directly to the amount of daylight. As the days get longer, their instincts tell them to migrate. Same in the Fall, in reverse naturally.

Historically I can remember 97-98 was avery warm winter. My log books show the first schoolies at the West Wall in Narr on March 19. Maybe a week or 2 early but not significant. The next really warm winter was 2006. I had my first keeper at Deep Hole on April 25. Again nothing out of the ordinary about that either.

We may see the Bass a week or two early but I wouldn't expect them before St Pats Day.

My biggest concern is with the lack of snow and resulting snow melt, how will that effect the Chessie spawn. They seem to like the Goldilocks snow melt, not too much or too little, but just right.

Warm, cold, whatever.
Wake me up on Mothers Day

I also thought the amount of snow runoff was more important.

Warm, cold, whatever.
Wake me up on Mothers Day

You are getting to a grumpy bastrd like me.
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Warm, cold, whatever.
Wake me up on Mothers Day

Yup. Ill be out the first week of may. I might head to second beach early but its more just to BS about fishing than anything.

You can never tell up here. I've caught little guys as early as the ist week in April and had late yrs that don't start up till mid May. The ammount of snow seems to have less effect compared to the number of fish that are migrating.

Piemma has it right. Generally the more robust the small striped bass population the earlier you start to see them. I'm thinking this unusual warm winter will have more of an effect on migration patterns and activity of other fish species like baitfish. Herring and some mackerel are still here - usually they're well off shore by now. Yesterday I took the dog for a walk by a salt pond and the mummichogs were really active in the shallows - I never see them In the dead of winter. Tautog are more water temp based active. The change we may see involves how much and what kind of bait will be here when the striper season gets underway.

DZ

It's still early yet, but water temps locally are about seven(7) degrees higher than normal, where i am in Ct.
I've seen this before as well, and usually the herring will be in the rivers locally maybe, a couple of weeks early. Last year the rivers were high into May and the river run of bass was a bust in the Ct. river for anglers. We might have lower than normal river heights in May, if we don't get any significant snow, this isn't good either. I've seen the dam exposed at Enfield in May one year. The deep holes where the herring and Alewife's usually stacked up were empty!

John please update you sig to reflect the spring run!

same with the plankton- the bloom is based off time of light during the day, not water temps