Looking ahead into the new year

A fresh new year sprawls out in front of us, 12 months of opportunity to do anything and everything to which we set our minds.

I’ll be busy. I like it that way. Sitting around drives me buggy.

We anglers are happy to invest in a little R&R this weekend, soaking in some football and indulging in the last of the holiday goodies. But there’s fishing to be done out there, and I plan to get off the couch to enjoy winter on the water.

I really have no choice. My mental health is at stake. Too many weeks without a pole in my hands makes me wonder a bit too much about things that are important only when they are out of context. Fishing keeps things in perspective.

So with 2010 still in diapers, I look over the horizon. Here’s what I see:

The gleam of frozen Mosquito Creek Reservoir. I take a vigorous walk out to the action, a 5-gallon bucket in one hand and my auger in the other. I’ll look for walleyes hanging around the stump flats, where they in turn are looking for the yellow perch on which they dine.

The bucket doubles as a tote for my stuff and as a seat when I tire of standing over the holes through which I jig Swedish Pimples and darting Rapalas. My “seat” returns to transit duty at the end of the day, with a couple of white-tipped walleye tails sticking out of the top.

Rushing water, curling into eddies and seams. When I am not up for hours on the ice, I like to work the tailrace at Mosquito’s spillway. I downsize to an ultralight spinning outfit, panfish jigs and pin-mins, tiny floats and a cup of maggots.

When conditions are right, I’ll hook up with crappies, perch and an occasional walleye. But even if I don’t catch a fish, the two hours or so at the side of the creek are mighty therapeutic.

A postcard snowscape with a pretty stream cutting across the picture. On days when the temperature is just above freezing, I will drive toward Lake Erie to the streams where steelhead trout are wintering. I rig my 12-foot noodle rod with 6-pound fluorocarbon, tie on a tiny black or brown jig and drift the offering in natural fashion below a small strike indicator.

I feel the cold water pressing the waders tight against my legs. Then all hell breaks loose when the little float disappears. A tail-walking steelhead can do a better belly-flop than the chubby kid at the pool on a hot summer day.

Red fiberglass soaking up spring’s first warm rays. I will park the boat in the driveway on the day before its first voyage and load up the gear I stored at home during its winter rest. Some say red boats don’t catch fish. I strongly disagree.

The rods go here, the lures go there. A quick check of the fire extinguisher and an overnight charge to the batteries, and we’re ready for tomorrow’s trip.

A lone willow bush’s tip-top branches extending several inches above the green water on a point leading into a sand-bottom bay. I pitch my jig to the edge of the bush, where it enters the water with barely a ripple and sinks out of sight. The line twitches and tightens. I jerk.

Fish on! The first Ohio bass of the year is but 10 or 12 weeks away.

In the meantime, I’ll start 2010 off right with just enough “mental health” days to enjoy the winter weeks. Like the aspirins that soothe nagging pains, a few tugs on my fishing line over the next three months will be perfect medicine to keep worries at bay.

jack@innismaggiore.com