Monday, December 12, 2016

Cold Weather Blues

Living in SE Ohio, cold weather is expected when winter arrives.  Typically, this doesn't mean hard water until after the New Year, but this year it has arrived early.  I had the afternoon to myself on Saturday and had a severe case of cabin fever, but was very disappointed when I saw the local ponds all had a hard top.  No matter what the weather is doing, if there's open water, I can usually coax a bluegill to hand to give me a fix, but that wasn't happening on Saturday.  My next closest option is my local Ohio River tributary.  Roughly March-November the fishing can be pretty decent for a mixed bag of warmwater species, but the water has really been cooling off lately.  My hopes were not all that high.


I dredged small Clouser deep minnows in chartreuse/white and yellow/olive for about 90 minutes in the deepest water I could find with no takes.  No crappie, no sauger, no bass, nothing but icy guides and cold finger tips.  I caught no fish, but it wasn't Bob Clouser's fault. 


Defeated, I came home to the warmth of the house and got the feeling back in my extremities.  I beat the frigid weather the best way I knew how: dreaming of warmer weather and fish busting topwater bugs.  I sat down at the bench and cranked out some warm weather weapons for the spring.  Until then, I'll hope for a few warming trends to open the ponds back up and provide some action. 





1 comment:

  1. Jeff, I am afraid that is what we have to look forward too for awhile now that cold and snow has set in..........

    Great looking patterns by the way!

    ReplyDelete