The warm weather in late winter also allows inland speck stocks to move out of the deep holes, where bait is scarce, and onto the warm, bait-rich flats much earlier in the season than usual. This gives them more time to grow and gain strength for the spawn. Also, the longer growing season means that fish that ordinarily would have been just under the 12-inch minimum during the summer season will be big enough to harvest this year. But, of course, the success speck anglers find out on the water during the summer is affected much more than just by what the weather was like the previous winter. There are ups and downs in the fishery that would exist even in a perfect weather world.
Biologists study trends in several different components to try to get a grasp of the big picture.
Lots of people believe we re on the top end of the cycle, and that the speckled trout fishing s going to start heading down this year. But I m not sure how much of that I believe, he said. As such, Pausina said he sees a continuation of a three-year trend of excellent speckled trout fishing. In 1996, there was a significant dropoff, but since then recruitment s been heading back up. This should lead to a large number of barely legal fish available for anglers to catch this year.