Trying to reason with hurricane season
Amidst the devastation and destruction left in the path of both Helene and Milton, finding the motivation to go fishing is still somewhat out of reach as we all desperately cling to what we have with nothing more than a glimmer of hope of experiencing any kind of normalcy in the weeks to come.
With most residents of Manatee County struggling to get power to their homes, or even worse being displaced with no inhabitable home to go to, it seems fishing is going to take a back seat to the more important things like maintaining our well-being and preserving through this unprecedented catastrophe that we now face.
By the passion for fishing will not die.
The fish will be there when we finally return to the waters once again and when we do, what will we find?
Wish strong currents, gale force winds and an extreme storm surge the term “back to the old drawing board” rings true for fishers.
The patterns we were accustomed to prior to the storms are all but erased as many fish have moved to deeper waters to find a more stable environment, thus making them all but undetectable except for a random stroke of luck by the angler.
And then there’s that ever-looming dark cloud in the form of red tide on our minds which usually occurs after storms of such magnitude causing butterflies in the stomachs of fishers who rely on our fishery to put food on the table or simply for a break in the action from the everyday struggle we call life.
The fuel for red tide, vast amounts of sewage being dumped from the treatment plants because they can’t accommodate the volumes of water combined with record breaking rainfall intermingling with the fertilizer run-off being mixed in our local waters creating the perfect recipe for an algae bloom.
Despite all of this, we will endure employing perseverance that mother nature is resilient and will slowly but surely regenerate herself back into the lush habitat that we hold so dear to our hearths.
Soon will be the days of calm waters and predictable tides and the better than average fishing we are accustomed to.
The days when we finally piece our lives back together and can put the horrific memories of Helene and Milton and just go out and go fishing.
