Thumbs up or thumbs down in 2011?
You can be on the best pattern in practice, or have figured out the killer bait, but then overnight something happens with the weather and your winning tourney plans go to hell. Whether it’s a storm that moves in and dumps tons of muddy water into your creek, or the wind blows 30 mph and kills your open water ledge bite. Seems like sometimes if something can go wrong, it will, which is why you can’t rely too much on prepractice dock talk – cause local weather can be the great equalizer.
In my parts this year it was fairly normal, except for two events.
The first was the wettest April on record, and one of the 10 wettest Mays. It blew out our rivers for weeks on end, to the point that I never caught a single smallmouth in the local creeks and rivers this year; and while it made for some good stained water shallow bassin in the reservoirs, it hurt the bedding sight bite. Additionally, it sent some of our Corp reservoirs 20′, to as much as 50′ over their normal summer levels, rendering them unfishable for months since launch ramps were completely inundated.
The other unique weather pattern was the warmer than usual November/December temperatures. We got some skim ice here and there, but we were launching boats and fishing open water on New Year’s Eve – and catching scads of cold water largemouth in the process. It’s so rare to be fishing open water in a boat at that time in the Great Lakes region, I even got a pass to go fishing on Christmas Day – and caught some nice bass while wearing  my Santa hat.
I dug through the weather archives and found that the last time we were able to do similar was 2001, exactly 10 years ago. Chances are it will be another 10 or more before we can brag about doing it again.
So good or bad – what role did the weather play in your fishing success (or failure) this year?
5 Comments
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Dwain
January 9, 2012 at 10:13 am
I didn’t care for what our weather did to the fish this year. We had a horrible topwater and frog bite this year compared to seasons past. Spring was not nearly as good as usual, and most of my best days were in the summer months. On the 30th of December I caught my personal best smallmouth here in Arkansas though, a 6 lb 1 oz beauty, and it was in about 3 feet of water. So overall I can’t complain, but I hope that next year the topwater bite is back to normal.
Rich Arnold
January 9, 2012 at 12:38 pm
The weather did a number on the fish down here where I live. We had an extra cold/long winter, a late spring with violent tornadoes, a shorter than usual summer, and an early fall. The ledge bite was short lived and the fish were doing 180 degrees from what I was doing for most of the year. I enjoyed the fall bite, but most of the year was tougher than usual. I am hoping for better weather patterns in 2012!
BryanT
January 9, 2012 at 5:07 pm
I don’t really pay attn to weather till Dec. Then I panic because of ice forming. Not so much this year. Geneva is still open, and I’m still catching a few on hair and float n fly. It’s funny how shallow the fish can be in 35* water. Been catching some in as shallow as 14′ deep.
I will say though I am now in full panic mode, single digits at the end of the week for a while.
Chad Keogh
January 9, 2012 at 7:39 pm
2011 is a thumbs down due to a late spring here in BC, Canada.
admin (mostly Jay)
January 17, 2012 at 4:57 pm
The longer, wetter springs and warmer winters we’ve been getting on the East Coast and Midwest (mostly) seem like they’ll hurt the spring, affect the summer and fall will be longer. No surprises for ya, but it’s affecting hunting too. Wonder how long this’ll last….