The Structure Cafe

This warm trend that hit Indiana helped a local reservoir go from 90% ice covered to 80% ice free between Thursday and Saturday. Luckily, part of the ice free area was the boat ramp. Lots of great articles again in the newest national newsletter that just came out a week or so back. A couple excerpts from John Bales' piece really stuck out to me;

"The guy that sits in his chair during the early and late seasons will miss out on understanding what the fish do in all weather and water conditions and seasonal movements and what it takes to make a catch during that time of year."

"I can think of many stories that Mr. Perry told where casting small jigs on light line was the ticket for making a catch for that particular day."

It's always a great challenge to get out just as the ice is leaving a lake and trying to figure out where the fish are, and then be able to follow them from there throughout the season. I was able to launch and fish for about 5-1/2 hours this weekend in what will be some of the coldest water I fish all year. Nothing like casting in areas just in sight of where the lake is still ice covered and inaccessible.

As for the second excerpt, it was interesting to see that even a blade bait was too fast of a speed for the weekend, and I only started getting bit once I dropped speed control down to a small hair jig on 8# line. Ended up swinging 18 bass aboard, and gave my boat and outboard a little winter exercise on top of it all. I'm now good waiting out the last few weeks of winter.