Wind is the force that stirs the ocean. It is a necessary step in the preparation of the oceanic soup that nourishes the food chain, and we often see it hard at work during springtime wind events.
Boaters and fishers roundly curse high winds because it limits our activities. But we appreciate what it does for us in the long term. You see, prolonged high winds is hard on fishing, and yet very important for great fishing.
Huh? Which is it? Well, in the short term wind is bad but in the long term it is beneficial.
Let’s revisit the comments I made about wind being the force that stirs the ocean, creating a life-enabling food chain soup.
For example if you skim a spoon across the top of a bowl of soup, the deeper stuff is lifted up behind the spoon. The combination of uplift and deep waves brings up the meat and good stuff from the bottom.
Wind serves as a big spoon that creates “oceanic upwelling,” bringing up nutrient-rich deeper water, chock full of the minute building blocks of the food chain.
Suddenly, there is much more food for ocean critters to eat, up in the shallows where we fish. That is why wind is good for fishing in the long term.
In the short term, however, surface water temperatures drop because the upwelling deeper water is colder. Our local gamefish such as calico bass seem to develop a case of lockjaw.
Halibut grow sullen. Pelagic fish just swim south until they find water temperatures more to their liking. We may not see them again for a few weeks.
Fortunately, our groundfish populations, including rockfish, ling cod, sheephead, ocean whitefish and others, are more temperature resilient and will happily eat anyway.
So fishing is still good right after the wind.
Fishing will get even better in the weeks after wind events. Massive schools of sardines, anchovies move into the now-rich feeding area and are followed by hungry pelagic predator fish which we like to fish for.
It isn’t all about fishing. We’ll also see great pods of dolphin and whales feeding on the concentrations of bait.
It is relatively rare that we have storm-force winds. That’s just a step down from hurricane winds.
Small-craft advisory winds are commonplace throughout the Santa Barbara Channel, and we also experience our share of gale force wind events.
These are what keep recreational boaters and commercial boaters alike, sitting snug in the harbor and doing maintenance work. Storm-force winds put boaters on high alert and send us scurrying to the harbor to check and recheck dock lines.
No safe and sane boater wants venture out of the harbor in strong wind events. Want to know how the wind events are ranked?
Wind Speeds Warnings:
21 knots (24 mph) to 33 knots (38 mph) Small craft advisory
34 knots (39 mph) to 47 knots (54 mph) Gale warning
48 knots (55 mph) to 63 knots (73 mph) Storm warning
64 knots (74 mph) or higher Hurricane warning
