Last Year At This Time, Global Warming(Climate Change) Was A Big Topic Here

[ozark trout fisher]

Fishing was great around here last year. If you didn't mind working at it a little. Toughen up solider!

On a more serious note though, 2, maybe 3 years ago we started out with a really hot summer. The temps and humidity were brutal. We had a wet spring so we had plenty of water. But May through July, not a drop. Temps were at 100 or just below. But it didn't bother the fish. It was on like donky kong all summer.

But come August the weather broke. It rained and the temps stayed in the 80's the rest of the summer. Was a really nice cool rest of the summer. I thought the fishing was really going to turn on then. But it did the exact opposite. It went to nothing. You could buy a bite. I hated it.

Fishing was great in the streams I fished too, for smallies. But especially towards the end when the drought was at it's worst, well, it just felt ridiculous, and somehow wrong catching fish out of streams that had a tiny fraction of their flow. It got to the point for me where it felt so sad seeing the rivers that I love in that state that it just was less fun than depressing. I'm glad that it appears this sort of thing will be at least delayed for a good long while this year. I'll happily take high, muddy rivers for another month if that's what it takes to avoid another drought like that!

[Wayne SW/MO]

LOL, didn't global warming start the day the Ice Age ended? Now the effects of man are surely speeding it up!

Here is a photo showing the pollution in a small city in Northern China. In the fall I visited and loved the city because the skies were crystal blue. was looking forward to this trip last week but when I arrived this is what I was faced with. Because of the NW winds blowing the pollution in from a larger city.

One hour outside, washed my face and turned the wash cloth "black"

Good grief Joe, I hope you have a good supply of face masks. Between the pollution and the SARS you're a braver man than most. You need some R & R on the 'gua.

[Al Agnew]

Yeah, even though China is beginning to realize that they are really, really fouling their own nest, I don't see them changing quickly enough to make much difference. Which is only one of the reasons why I'm pessimistic...if global warming is the danger that most scientists say it is, and if it's caused in significant part by CO2, China and probably India are going to be the drivers of it, and we in the U.S. are not going to make enough of the difference even if we do finally agree on the danger. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, though.

Fishing last year was fairly good for me, but I like low water. I don't mind dragging the canoe and wearing out the bottom of it to get into good fishing. This year, at least the first part of the summer, should be very different, but perhaps not better.

I do wonder a bit about how ethical it is to fish for cool water fish like smallmouth when the water temperatures climb well into the 80s like they were in so many places last summer...but I'm not going to stop doing it. Hopefully that won't be a problem this year.

[jdmidwest]

Frosty Night Tonight.

[hoglaw]

I find it amusing that folks can point to the fact that this May 12th was colder than last May 12th and intimate "where's your global worming now??????" But when the overwhelming majority of experts in the field agree that each decade has been progressively warmer, it's all crickets. I'll be the first to confess that I'm willfully ignorant when it comes to politics, but at this point are there any credible sources that actually dispute that the increased emission of greenhouse gases actually causes the artificial warming of the earth? I know lots of folks at one point would say "well yeah, I believe it's getting warmer, but cycles and such...people aren't causing it" but surely that has gone away by now.

But saying because it's cold today the earth isn't progressively getting warmer, in 2013, really does seem silly.

[Phil Lilley]

Again????

[Jack Jones]

Agreed Mr. Lilley. Maybe this should be put under the "trolling" thread....for reasons other than fishing.

[Bill B.]

And it still should be. Check this out:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/11/atmospheric_carbon_dioxide_levels_at_all_time_high_for_past_several_million.html

[Smalliebigs]

um okay......while you choose to get your panties in a wad because of alleged "Global Warming or Climate Change" and basicly proclaim it is the truth like some armchair climatologist as we are having the coldest spring of all time thus far, seems to be a prevarication. I also find it ironic that you would admit to the warmer water temps being detrimental to the species you seem to covet "Smallmouth Bass" but, you refuse to quit fishing for them when the water temps become very high because of your alleged Climate change???? seems very contrarian to your indoctrinated views of the environment and it's critters.

Yeah, even though China is beginning to realize that they are really, really fouling their own nest, I don't see them changing quickly enough to make much difference. Which is only one of the reasons why I'm pessimistic...if global warming is the danger that most scientists say it is, and if it's caused in significant part by CO2, China and probably India are going to be the drivers of it, and we in the U.S. are not going to make enough of the difference even if we do finally agree on the danger. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, though.

Fishing last year was fairly good for me, but I like low water. I don't mind dragging the canoe and wearing out the bottom of it to get into good fishing. This year, at least the first part of the summer, should be very different, but perhaps not better.

I do wonder a bit about how ethical it is to fish for cool water fish like smallmouth when the water temperatures climb well into the 80s like they were in so many places last summer...but I'm not going to stop doing it. Hopefully that won't be a problem this year.

[ozark trout fisher]

Won't engage in the global warming side of this. But as for the other peripheral discussion.....fishing for smallmouth in really warm water is just like fishing for trout in water that is 70+....namely, you probably shouldn't. For some reason this hasn't caught on to nearly the same extent in smallmouth fishing circles as it does for a lot of trout fisherman. This is probably for no other reason, than it takes a pretty exceptional level of heat for quite a long time for this problem to develop seriously for smallmouth most places but it doesn't take nearly as much for trout so it happens more often. It did get there for me eventually last year, for first trout and then towards the end, smallies. I eventually quit fishing for them except in the more spring-fed streams where the temps stayed okay.