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| Brian James |
Oh the weather outside is frightful...
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Posted Friday, November 18th, 2005 to Brian James
Just because it's cold outside, doesn't mean you should put away your fishing gear.
I'll be the first to admit. Fall is my favorite time of the year. Football season starts, the leaves turn beautiful colors, and the weather cools off to a more comfortable level. But I also know that just around the corner is wind, snow and frozen lakes. Over the last couple of years in my renaissance of fishing as I like to call it, I would rather spend my spare time fishing than almost anything else, and that feeling doesn't stop just because the ponds down the street are frozen solid.
The change in temperatures have forced me to look elsewhere for my fishing action. The first place that I head is moving water. Very rarely does it get cold enough, and stay cold enough for our rivers to freeze in Central Indiana. I can almost always find some water to get to. This has driven me to explore new species of fish to target and thus, new techniques for trying to catch those species. An example would be Walleye. Unless I am on a boat in the middle of Lake Erie, I will never even think about Walleye from Spring until Fall. Not because I don't like to catch them, but because they rank below Largemouth and Smallmouth bass on my priority list. How this list was compiled, I am not sure. But my tackle boxes and bags prove the point and so I am rarely prepared to go after a species that doesn't hit a cranbait, spinnerbait, or buzzbait. Now I can say with certainty that I have very little knowledge on fishing for walleye in tailwaters, and rivers/streams. But I know more this year than last, and after this Winter, I will know more than when it started. For that, I am glad. I was always taught that if you were going to do something, that you wanted to be the best at it. And cold weather forces me to be better.
Let's take Crappie for example. If it weren't for colder weather, I would never fish for Crappie either. Now I know a lot of folks who would say that is sacrilege, that they are great eating and put up as much fight on light tackle as I would ever want. And I would agree with that. Except that I don't keep fish. My family has never been into eating it. And I am lazy. I hate to clean fish. Also, I am not a light tackle guy. I am a Medium Heavy the bigger the fish the better kind of guy. So once again, I am rarely prepared with the appropriate tackle to go after the slabs. So when the weather makes a turn for the worse, and I have to grab one of the kids poles out of the garage and swing by the tackle shop to grab some small tubes, grubs, and minnows. Heck, if you asked me for a bobber from May to November, I would tell you that I keep them in Alan's tackle box. I don't own one. Terrible isn't it. Oh well, I'll grab some at Wally's World on the way.
The second place I head is to any lake that isn't solid. It may be slow going, but there are still fish to be caught in lakes with water as cold as mid to upper 30's. This is another step in the journey of becoming a better fisherman. Cold water makes me use lures and presentations that I am not accustomed to. Fishing slow is not my gig. Maybe that explains why I don't fish for Walleye and Crappie on a regular basis. I like to throw stuff that covers a ton of ground, fast. Don't get me wrong, I will throw a tube, or a Sqworm Stick under certain warm water conditions, but normally to small specific targets and even then I hit those spots fairly quickly and get to the next one. However, you cannot have a fast fishing style and be productive in water hovering around 40 degrees. This time of year sharpens my skill of a slow methodic presentation and patience. Whether I use either after Easter can be debated, but at least I know how if I need to.
The final place that I look for fish is on the internet. There is a wealth of knowledge, conversation, and fun chit chat about fishing on the internet. You are on a site right now that I visit every day, as I do a few others. I read reports from all over the country. I do this to see what people are throwing for what kind of fish under what conditions. I get as much from a fishing report where no fish were caught as I do where they were jumping in the boat. Do you know why? Because on days where you catch 50 fish in a couple of hours, the conditions were such that they probably would hit most anything. The real information is in a report where you caught 4 fish over 3 hours and threw everything in your bag. What worked? What didn't?
I read or at least skim tons of articles on fishing. One that I read yesterday actually had a paragraph in it that I found very interesting:
"Fish in the catch-and-release division are judged by taking a picture with a disposable camera provided by the organizing committee. Cheaters are weeded out through extensive polygraph tests."
You never know what you are going to run across on a quick journey across the net. I can't even keep track of the times that I say to Alan, " I read somewhere that..." Does that correlate into better results when fishing? Not always, but if it does sometimes, then it is worth it. So I would suggest that the next time you decide to stay home instead of trudging out to go fishing, head over to www.largemouthbass.com, or www.ultimatebass.com, or www.globalfisher.com, or well I could go on for a long time.
Don't let the weather end your fishing season, let it make you a better fisherman.
WAR
--
Brian James
President
Tri State Fishing Club
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