Spring Weather

I certainly hope that by the time you read this column, things have truly shaped up around here…but as I sit here on a snowy and cold Monday, March 25, I have to scratch my head and think back a few weeks and columns to our furry little guy, the groundhog, and wonder at how he could have so badly gotten it all wrong! Now it is right here that my frustrations will end and I’m not going to go on a rant  but we are about 6 weeks late for our early arrival of spring; frankly I just hope that one or all of the little varmints that predicted an early spring are hunkered in and maybe just a little cold as we all are.

>>> Click Here <<< to listen to an audio clip of me talking about ‘fishing small waters’ like the ones I write about in this article.

The word is that we have to go back over one hundred years to find a snow amount this late and this much; 1912, you might also remember that in April of 1912 the Titanic had its maiden voyage and ended up sinking to the bottom of the North Atlantic. The truth is that was a long time ago and many years have come and gone without this much snow occurring this late in the calendar.

Yesterday was one odd day…just knowing that the day before I had fished one of the many stripper pits in the Linton area, then came home and mowed a bit…all before hitting a small bucket of golf balls in my yard; then just sitting by, waiting for the inevitable snow to start in earnest…all while watching IU once again give me way too much of a scare! I will add that at times the snow falling quite intensely was truly beautiful. It took me back to my several years living in Wyoming as I can’t remember it ever lightly snowing out west. When it decided to snow…it really got with it and the flakes out of my front window reminded me so vividly of the large, wet and heavy flakes that would splash down, sometimes almost drowning you, on their way to covering much of the prairie in the Cowboy State.  My ‘herd’ of deer liked the fact that the snow and wind was coming out of the north and my many large pines blocked the snow from making it to the ground, thus allowing them to feed up and down the drive way, just inside the pines.

Saturday the 23^rd was a busy one, but the window of good weather was brief and therefore I decided to give my boat its first taste of water this season and drove to Hillenbrand FWA; my first stop was no good as Shelter Lake was sort of like fishing in hot chocolate, so I quickly loaded up the boat and moved about a mile away to Horseshoe Lake. Horseshoe is oddly shaped, like a giant cowboy’s spur…both ‘legs’ of the lake are long and thin and on this day the very cool breeze was blowing just enough to keep my boat parallel to the shore, an occasional tap on the foot pedal would correct for drift and I was able to fish about a half mile of shoreline without too much effort in re-directing the boat.

The first half hour was more than slow as I didn’t get even a tap. I moved through a few different colors and sizes of flies and finally gave my Lemon Shiner pattern a try…this is my favorite fly for smallmouth and in stained water the bright yellow and silver pattern is hard to miss. Finally a small 12 incher smacked the fly and I had removed the skunk off the boat!  I was relieved at that point, if you have done much fishing, sometimes just one fish makes you feel better. Two casts later and bang, another 12 inch fish…finally I thought I might have stumbled upon a pattern. Several cast later and yet again another bass…this one about 13 inches with a big belly, a very healthy looking fish!

As cold as it was (it always gets warmer when I catch fish?) I continued on and over the next 30 minutes I caught fish; mostly small bass in the 12 inch range, which is still fun on a fly rod. About halfway down the long leg of Horseshoe I made a long, 45 degree cast into some cover, started to strip my yellow shiner back to the boat when I felt, what I knew, was a better take, strip set without thinking with my left hand, then gave a double pump with my rod hand to make sure the hook was set. Up out of the water came a beautiful site…a big plump bass, tail-walking his way toward the boat. I quickly stripped several times, caught up with the fish…and then waited patiently for the 17 incher (weighed in at 2.46 lbs.) to tire. It was a fine picture, half of the shiner pattern sticking out of the corner of the mouth and the deep greens of the bass pulling hard against my 6 weight fly-line!

It seemed like minutes but I’m sure it was closer to one minute…and I was able to reach down and calmly lip my latest catch. As always I snapped a few photos of this trophy and then watched as it quickly sprinted away from the boat, directly to the depths of the cool water. What a great experience and even though I had a long commute back to the truck, into the cold wind, I treasured the morning. As I powered back towards the boat launch, a hen turkey started cutting, yelping over and over like she was the last female out there. Several geese continued to honk from side to side…something told me they were looking for a nice place to raise their upcoming brood of ‘youngins’. It is at times like these that I’m thankful that I awoke early and put in the effort to make my way out into the beauty and grandeur of the outdoors. I know that our spring weather is fickle at best…but sitting around waiting for that perfect day will mean you have missed many days such as this one; get up and get going as we all Enjoy the Great Outdoors!