JACK WOLLITZ Weather prompts angler introspection

The weather patterns that settled over our area this fall quickly took the fun out of fishing, pulling us off the water and driving us into early retirement for the 2002 season.
It's too cold for open water fishing and too warm for ice fishing. Many anglers would be out dabbling for crappies in deep brush piles and jigging for walleyes offshore at our favorite lakes. Instead, we're huddling indoors, waiting for the weather to cooperate once again.
Becoming an angling couch potato at least has one benefit: we can look back and reflect on the things we took for granted last spring, summer and fall. They are simple pleasures, these things we took for granted. Things like hooking up the boat and towing out to the lake.
Or waiting in line for your turn to launch at a busy ramp, all the while amused (or infuriated) by the ineptness of many who fumble with ropes, stubborn outboards and a complete lack of boat-handling knowledge.
Missing that twitch
I miss the twitch of the bobber, the sure sign a crappie was interested in my minnow. I long for the rod tip to dip toward the water during a drift over a walleye-holding sand hump at Mosquito Creek Reservoir.
After a dozen or so aerial displays by big Erie bronzebacks, it might be easy to take another leaping bass for granted. That was in June, but today it's December. Wouldn't one of those tussles be fun?
I like the smell of the swampy woods around the lake. For that matter, even the oily smoke from a freshly-fired outboard is a sweet aroma to a dyed-in-the-wool angler.
Then there's the vista from Berlin's Mill Creek ramp, the mid-lake bulge sliced by dozens of wakes. And the sweeping lakescape from the Pymatuning causeway - north and south nearly as far as the eye can see.
What mystery lurks below our waters? At West Branch Reservoir, one never knows whether it's a giant muskie, a fat catfish or a feisty bass when the tap of the strike radiates up the line to your palm.
I take it for granted in July at Shenango Reservoir that the next stump will have a 3-pound bass lurking underneath. They don't all hold fish, but when the bass are on the wood, Shenango's a great place to be fishing.
It's not always a fish-catching adventure that comes to mind when we think back over a season of fun. I recall great schools of shad cruising and skittering at Presque Isle Bay and the Ohio River.
And a barrel of laughs out on the lakes with some of the finest people who walk the earth - my fishing friends.
It was easy to take those days for granted. It's also good to look ahead to next year's versions of all that and more.
Christmas idea
Here's another gift idea for the angler on your list. Consider a membership to the Consumers Mahoning Valley Lakes.
An individual membership ordered before Jan. 6 is $50. A family membership is $90.
Pine, Evans and Hamilton offer great fishing for bass and panfish and anybody who fishes will enjoy a pass to the lakes.
For ordering information, call (330) 549-3756.
jwwollitz@aol.com