About 180 days ago, I remember eating dinner with my wife, waiting for the sun to set (at nearly 9:00) so I could hit the beach to chase striped bass during the shortest night of the year. Today was the opposite. I ate a quick breakfast in my dark kitchen while waiting for the sun to rise over the shortest day of the year, the first day of winter. I’d made plans to meet Eddy Stahowiak at a small pond down the road from our office to sneak in an hour of bass fishing before work. After pulling my waders over my work clothes, I passed over my gloves and heavy jacket, picking up a light raincoat that seemed better suited for the 55-degree temperatures.
It’s been an unusually mild December, but one that’s allowed fishermen to extend their season. Fleets of sportfishers hit the canyons well into the December, stripers are still being caught in the New Jersey surf, and freshwater bass and trout fishing has been as good as it gets all throughout the Northeast. But rest assured, winter is coming.
It may not be this week, or the next, but soon, the weather will turn, the snow will fall, and the mornings of fishing without gloves will be a memory until late March. Enjoy it while it lasts.
