Thursday Tips: Rise & Shine

An early-season tip posted on this page suggested sleeping a little later on fishing days, letting the sun do its warming work and focusing efforts on the afternoon hours. Well, that was then, and this is now. With spring solidly in place and summer just around the bend, it's time to get up before the cows and to be on the water and in casting position by first light. As water temperatures rise, most kinds of fish feed more aggressively at first light. Last light is the next best daytime period, but given the choice, go early.

Along with feeding more better, most fish are more apt to take topwater lures early in the morning, Their surface feeding behavior, in addition to offering big fun, provides locational clues that can help you pattern the fish later in the morning, after the fishing becomes more challenging. Of course, if you're fishing public waterways with significant pleasure boating activity, getting out early helps you beat the skiers to the water. And as summer progresses, it helps you beat the heat of the day and be more comfortable.

Stepping beyond the practical, it's simply nice being on the water when while the fog lingers, the sun hang slow and the frogs, bugs and birds trade choruses.

Ice Stories

Funny. Today has been one of the first days this spring that it has felt pretty hot around here. Not terrible, but clearly summer-like. So what have I done all day? Edited writing for a Kindle book about ice strategies that I'm putting together. That's sort of the nature of the outdoor writing business, though. A lot of what I'm working on at any given time is for magazines that will come out several months later. So when it's hot, I'm writing about winter white bass jigging or maybe ice fishing. When it's cold, I'm writing about mid-summer stuff.

Of course, I guess the ice writing isn't really that odd. In northern Minnesota, where I enjoy some of my ice adventures, some lakes have only been open for a week or two! And I know I have a couple of friends up north who are already mourning the melting of the ice and looking forward to next season!

Gear: Armachillo Collection

Duluth Trading Company had workers in hot climates primarily in mind when they created the Armachillo line of clothes, but you sure wouldn't know these shirts, pants and hats weren't designed specifically for fishermen. The sun-protective and lightweight fabric and the design make the button-down shirts as comfortable and nonrestrictive as any I've ever worn, and the cargo pants and shorts fit comfortably whether you're sitting or standing and have pockets in all the right places.

What's extra cool, though, (and I mean that both literally and figuratively) is that Duluth Trading Company embeds microscopic pieces of jade in the fabric, which somehow cools the whole garment and consequently your skin. I can't claim that I fully understand the technology, but I've tried it out and can tell you that it works and that I'll definitely be reaching for Armachillo clothes when I'm going to be fishing in the summer heat.

The Armachillo clothes collection, which apparently was field tested last summer in the oil fields of Texas, includes shirts in button-down, polo and tee-shirt styles, cargo pants and shorts and even sun-protective hats of a few different styles.

I'm no clothes junkies and don't normally give tremendous thought to what I wear. I realize, though, that fishing clothes are tools of sorts, and that dry rain gear, warm winter wear and cool summer clothes truly make fishing trips more fun and can even help you catch more fish because you are comfortable and better able to concentrate on fishing patterns and execution.

Bugs & Rain Won

Yesterday afternoon's pond outing was pretty short. It didn't take long to figure out that the mosquitoes were far more apt to bite than the bass or the bream, so when a drizzle arose and then turned into a steady soaker, we decided to steer it toward home. That's a nice thing about having ponds nearby, I suppose. You can decide on a whim to fish for a while and if you decide to quite early, little is lost.

Nathaniel Asher and I did manage a few fish (one apiece, actually). Mine was a bluegill, and it actually came from the house pond, where we picked up a canoe for Nathaniel to use. Nathaniel and Asher each caught one bass from the beaver pond. I had several surface hits on a Rebel Bighopper, but they seemed to be from bream that were a little too small to fully engulf the bait.

A week or so ago Nathaniel and I fished the house pond for bluegills and the bite was really good, with the fish all over little grubs. I might need to slip back out there with Asher one day vary soon so that he can experience some of the same.

Bugle Lips & Bread Battles -- Pymatuning Spillway

"Cheap entertainment," a mother said through a smile as her children through slices of bread into the water and marveled at the frenzied carp show. "We've been here dozens of times, but it's always just as fun."

I understood the young bread throwers' fascination. I had no offerings of my own, but I war right there with them enjoying the show. Nothing contains the thousands of carp that congregate around the Spillway at Pennsylvania's Pymatuning State Park. This living simply is good, as it has been for decades because of a longstanding tradition of feeding the fish, so the fish have no reason to go anywhere else.

I'd heard about the carp and had been told several times that I really needed to see them. Apparently only the Liberty Bell attracts more visitors in a year in Pennsylvania. Still, I had no comprehension how cool it really could be to watch a mass of rubber-lipped armor-sided fish begging for bread like spoiled house pets. I shot a couple of video clips, which I'll find the best of and post later, but you really have to see it yourself, so if you're ever anywhere near the Pennsylvania/Ohio border...

Of course, Pymatuning is a beautiful park with cabins and plentiful campsites and the fishing is outstanding, so you don't have to travel there just for the carp. Just don't leave the carp out of the plan when you are in the neighborhood!

Western PA Buffet

A hard front that brought two days of mid-May snow and a sharp drop in water temperatures definitely had an adverse effect on the bite while I was in Western Pennsylvania. Even so, I caught seven different species of fish in 2 1/2 days on the water, and several members of the group I was with caught that many kinds of fish or more. The diversity and quality of the fisheries at Pymatuning, Conneaut and Shenango River lakes just astounds me.

Fish catch aside, the three lakes are all very different from one another in character, and I enjoyed time in the boat on all three and in a cabin on the banks of Pymatuning Lake at night.

Folks from our group fished a big variety of ways to find success. My most productive lures by far were a Road Runner Natural Science head matched with a Bobby Garland Stroll'R or a tiny Skippy Fish and a Road Runner Pro Marabou 2.0. Both vertical and horizontal presentations produced a good share of my catch.

Of course when I get home I'll have to pull out the 2013 catch list to do a bit of updating. I believe three of the species I caught this week will add to this year's tally.

I'll take a Pymatuning Tough Day

Lots of grumbling today -- both about the wintery mid-May weather and about the slow bite. I gotta say, though, that I've spent some pretty long days on various legendary fishing waters and caught 10 less fish than I caught today, and no grumbles about the bite came from my mouth. I had a wonderful time fishing and learned a great deal from anglers Jim Hall and Ernie Pate.

Of course, the variety that Pymatuning produces continues to amaze me. We brought five different species of fish into the boat I was in this morning, despite an unusually slow bite, and one boat in our group reported seven species from the same morning shift.

I also enjoy the character of Pymatuning and the opportunity to cast to plentiful visible cover.

Tomorrow I leave shallow and stained water behind to fish the deep clear waters of Conneaut Lake, which is nothing like Pymatuning, despite being only about 15 miles from here. Primary targets are smallmouth bass and bluegill, but we'll see what wants to bite!