Dreams of warming spring temperatures – the kind that produce thoughts of getting back in the boat – have been dashed.
Thank Mother Nature for all of these frightfully cold temperatures.
So bitter has the weather been that even a lot of diehards have hung up the vessel’s keys and decided to wait a little longer.
But some boaters – mostly anglers – are the kind of folks who don’t seem to get as cold or they are the ones who have all the best gear to keep them toasty.
They’ve been rewarded with some outstanding action for bluefin and blackfin tuna, and some good bottom fishing.
But one group, a fraternity like few others, always finds itself in dire straights when air temperatures drop below freezing and waters follow suit.
Speckled trout aficionados.
You know who you are. The anglers who work harder to hide what lure they’re using than they do trying to catch something; the ones who will let a fish off the hook on one side of the boat so those fishing on the other won’t see it.
It’s not the top secret fishery is once was, as multitudes of anglers have figured out the enjoyment.
But even with the newbies, the mindset is there.
Yes, the speckled trout – with a hint if orange in a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs, the one covered in spots – has long been revered a shallow-water favorite up and down the East Coast.
Up here in Virginia and North Carolina waters, where some call the fish a spotted seatrout, there is a problem other states don’t deal with.
Cold stun.
It’s a combination that causes trout to become lethargic and unresponsive as they come to the sun-filled surface in hopes of getting warmer. Cold stuns often kill entire schools of speckles.
It happens when the water temperature falls under 45 degrees, with most fishing having severe problems when it gets around 40 over the course of a few days, or drops into the upper 30s when a major league blast of cold lasts more than 24 hours.
Trying to catch one of these fish by conventional means is a waste of time. They’re suffering and a last meal comes second to getting warm.
Because of reported stun events this year, North Carolina has shut down the trout season in coastal and joint fishing waters.
The closure is set to last until early June, and is for both recreational and commercial interests.
The opening date was set to give fish a chance to spawn in the late spring.
Virginia has no such cold stun closure, but has cut off the commercial take of trout because the industry has met its annual harvest quota of 51,104 pounds.
Serious fans of the fish are distraught.
They worry that such events will hurt the population and harm something they love more than most other things.
The good news is that previous cold stun winters haven’t done much damage to a species that makes the waters of our two states its home. Our populations have been very healthy over the years.
And with weather forecasters calling for temperatures to begin moderating toward seasonal averages, there’s good news for a fish that has for decades enjoyed a lofty status.
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