The new moon is past and things have quieted down a bit and the tides that I like to fish in the estuaries and rivers are later and later especially way up the bay with the delay do to the distance from the ocean. Some places I fish are an hour to three hours later than what it says on the tide charts. Tides are actually predictions and not absolutes. 

One river I like to fish has been hot and another right next to it is not. There are fish in both but one is small and searchable and the other is big and the fish are spread out and cherry picking silversides out in the main flow. Hard to cover them as they are ranging due to the abundance of baitfish holding in the main current flow which is too far out to reach with a fly rod but not with a spinning rod. That won’t last long though. I like that big river and I can wait.
When the fish move in to a new location they are often aggressive and high strung and then they settle and find places that suit them in various locations in the river. They spread out and as the days go by more and more of them come and spread out too.
It is a time of transition for them. They know where they are going and every year they come just like the birds that come in the spring to the same woods and backyards.
Nature has order and that order is real and predictable to some extent at least in terms of the big picture. Every year is different but even that is cyclical and within the cycle of 13 moons in 12 months and 2 equinoxes and 2 solstices are the determiner of what will happen when and where. A movable feast but a feast none the less.

You look for clues to figure out just what is happening. You learnt the clues by observing what happens in the now and remembering it next year. Lilacs blooming, daffodils sprouting up, tulips, red maple flowers, skunk cabbage and even insect hatches on trout streams. They are all in an order determined by the moons and the equinoxes. The twelve month solar calendar is meaningless in relation to the moons as it does not factor them in as the curser. We trick ourselves into thinking that this year is late or early and it never is. It is the moons and their relationship to the Solstices and the Equinoxes that is the measure.
This year the full moon fell on the Spring Equinox. This is a benchmark year.

The dates from this year will not repeat next year but look to the spring full moon in relation the equinox for your clues. It will not be exact but it will be real.
We have to adapt to change even if we can’t predetermine what these changes mean.
Look to the flowers and the plants for clues as they are never wrong.
Nature never makes mistakes.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 10:10 pm and is filed under stripers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.