Effects of mild winter are wherever you look

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Updated: March 9, 2012 8:19AM

By love as much as necessity, most of us who knock around the outdoors are weather buffs. For us, Aurora
Municipal Airport just west of Sugar Grove is the
measuring stick for cold. The coldest temperature there this winter was
1 degree on Jan. 2.

The effects of the sixth-warmest winter to date since 1895, as calculated by state climatologist Jim Angel, are widespread around Chicago outdoors.

With the exception of a few days, hardy boaters have been able to launch and fish around southern Lake Michigan. Early reports of catching coho started a couple of weeks ago at Michigan City and the Port of Indiana.

Brian Breidert, the Lake Michigan fisheries biologist for Indiana, said even some perch fishermen have been launching and boating jumbos. On Monday, he put harbor water temperatures around 37 — perfect for whitefish to begin an early shoreline return, too. Breidert wondered if the warm winter would lead to fish heading north or deeper earlier than usual, perhaps as early as late March.

Mike Wefer, the ag and grassland wildlife program manager for Illinois, put up a little caution.

‘‘The mild winter should be good for pheasants and quail,’’ he said. ‘‘Unfortunately, a couple of blizzards or an ice storm from now on out could reverse all that. If we make it the rest of the winter without heavy snows, rabbits will really benefit, as their first litter of the year stands a much better chance of being successful.

‘‘I’m not that worried about early nesting. With pheasants, cold rains in May are a bigger concern.’’

Waterfowl might be an even better weather vane. With only one real snowstorm this winter and many lakes and ponds having at least some open water, geese have set up house around the suburbs. Officer Tim Jacob even reported a gosling last week at Cook County Jail.

Snow geese have been streaming northward through central Illinois by the tens of thousands, roughly a month early.

River fishermen have had fishable water virtually all winter. The water temperature Monday on the Kankakee River in Illinois was warmer than 40 degrees, according to Norm Minas, who was catching walleye and northern pike. There normally are ice floes in the river at this time of year, with water around 32 degrees.

Lack of ice has caused changes in some scheduled winter events but not the Chain O’Lakes Fishing Derby and Winter Festival, the Northern Illinois Conservation Club’s big fundraiser this weekend.

‘‘The derby is still on!’’ Bonnie Letich emailed. ‘‘Even if they fish off the shoreline or in a boat. This is the first year weather has been a threat for two of the days. I’ve been in the club since 1993, and I’ve seen all the weather conditions the derby has gone through in those 19 years. One year, we were knee-deep in snow. Another year, Sunday brought fishermen off the black ice at 9 a.m. Mother Nature is in control, that’s for sure.’’

That sums it up.

Stray cast

Bill James/Izaak Walton, Billy Beane/Buck Perry, Theo Epstein/Al Lindner? Things roll around my head like a loose split shot between the Big Game and ‘‘pitchers/catchers report.’’