First day out, 2009

Well, it wasn’t much.  But with the temperature at nearly 50 degrees Fahrenheit this morning, I just had to give it a try.  When I arrived at the lake, I was initially disheartened to find much of it still iced-over, but as I drove around to my usual spring fishing spot, thankfully there was open water.  A warm winter day in Kansas usually means there is a stiff wind from the south, but today the air was pretty calm–except for the fact that the trees were all bare and there was no live grass at the water’s edge, you could have thought it was a day in early April.

I gave it my best shot, but no luck today–not even a nibble.  I suspect most of the fish are in deeper, warmer water, and I tried to cast as far and as deep as I could, but if the truth be told, I wasn’t really expecting to catch anything today.  That’s almost never a problem for me–I just enjoy being outdoors and standing on the bank, taking in the fresh air, listening to the wildlife all around (and today there were large flocks of geese on the water and in the air, honking up a storm).

My spinning reel was a bit noisy, though–which reminded me that I haven’t done any winter maintenance on my gear, so that goes on the to-do list.  I usually like to take my reels apart and clean out the grit and lubricate the gears (I typically use a little Vaseline for this), and load them up with fresh line before I head out for the first time.

This year there will be a new twist in my fishing outings:  my favorite local fishing lake, Douglas County State Fishing Lake, has been closed for several years for maintenance–they drained it and worked on the dam and set out some brush piles to improve fish habitat–and as of the first of the year, it’s open again for fishing.  I haven’t fished it yet, but I will.  I’ve heard that you need to give a new lake a few years to develop before the fishing gets good again, but this lake has been closed to fishing for a pretty long time since they began filling it up again, so I’m optimistic that it will produce some nice bass fishing by summer time.

Here’s hoping that you get out sometime soon, too!