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The long wait is finally over
To my neighbors in Poland: Sorry if I woke you this morning.
Perhaps you can forgive me for my shouts of joy as I towed the BassCat up the street for my first trip to the lake in 2016. The winter hasn’t been harsh, but it’s been long, and my pent-up frustration about many months sans fishing needed an outlet.
Yes! Or rather , YES!
Bass, beware. Anything swimming the shoreline cover at Mosquito Creek Reservoir this morning was fair game. Finally, after four and a half months, I was back on the front deck. By the time you read this, I hope to have fired several hundred casts, flips and pitches.
Granted, we’re still in March. Many a year, I’m not on the water until April Fool’s Day. But the past few weeks of temptingly good weather were more than I could resist. I made plans, readied the boat and off I went.
I was ready.
Earlier this week, with the boat rescued from winter storage and sparkling under the fluorescent lights in my garage, I stocked the compartments.
Into the rod locker I slid trusty sticks with years of experience, along with three new rods that came home with me over the winter. I retired a couple of reels – thanked them for their service – and screwed on two new Lew’s that are so smooth I couldn’t wait to work them.
For the business end of my casting rods, I arranged the newly organized and vastly reduced arsenal of lures. Today on Mosquito, the boat is riding lighter. I’ve stowed approximately half of the crankbaits, jigs, spinnerbaits, topwaters and other lures now compared to the end of the 2015 season.
It becomes apparent almost every day on the water that one or two lures are about all I’ll need, but the be-prepared gene in me mandates triplicates of reliable hard baits and 30 or more of my preferred soft baits. You don’t need to be an engineer to understand the boat will run faster and float higher if its payload is 100 pounds lighter.
Anglers understand fishing is a wonderful sensory experience. The coolness of morning, the honking of geese and the smell of spring in the wetlands are familiar sensations for those who fish Mosquito in the early season.
The mind projects experiences we know will come. As I drove to the lake, I also could feel the wind on my face as I throttled up the Mercury to get on plane. I caught a whiff of two-cycle exhaust smoke and I heard the line gliding through my rod guides.
For better or worse, these are things I enjoy. They take me to a place I want to be – literally and figuratively.
I also might catch a bass or two.
If I don’t, it won’t be the end of the world. If I catch them, great. If I don’t, I’ll go back and try again.
That’s fishing. I’m glad I’m back at it.
And so I let loose with a very vocal exclamation as I pulled out of the drive, the boat and its driver hankering to get down to action.
YES!