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You can’t outrun the cold air now. It’s here and it’s here for a while, unless you live in Florida or other warm climate areas of our globe. But if you live in the Midwest, on the East or out West in America; the cold is here. But there’s still time for fishing until the waters freeze over and then you’ve got ice fishing if you live in Minnesota or other Northern destinations.

The challenge with cold weather fishing is not only how to keep your hands warm but also how to catch fish. While many give up on fishing, there’s still plenty of fish to be caught, you just got to go deep and slow down. While many fisherman will get out their small jigs in order to catch those chunky bluegills and crappie feeding down deep; I go a different route. I get out my fly rod for some exciting and fun fishing on the surface.

With the cold weather, the weed beds at the lake near my home have started to retreat and die. During the summer, it was impossible not to get tangled up in the weeds on the surface unless you used a weedless top water or a spinning bait. But now that the weeds are below the water, I get out my fly rod and tie a #12 dry fly onto my tippet and drag it across the top of the weed beds to get some rise out of the fish hiding out down there.

Because there’s still a chance of hooking into the weeds, tie your flies onto a tippet of at least 4x or 5lb test. Because the weeds are weaker, you can usually pull your flies loose with a stronger tippet rather than loosing them. For panfish like bluegill and crappie, I usually go with a #12 size dry fly like a Elk Hair Caddis or a Royal Coachman. Just toss it out over the weed beds, twitch it every few seconds and let it sit. In no time at all, you’ll either be hooking into a bunch of fish or you’ll get cold. If you aren’t getting any action move on to different parts of the weed bed. Sooner or later, you’ll find the sweet spots.

If you’re after some bigger fish like small mouth, large mouth or white bass; try a larger dry fly or a streamer like a Wooly Bugger or a Clouser Minnow. If you’re seeking fish down deeper and don’t want to resort to a jig; try a sinking tip fly line with a streamer or wet fly. Again, the fish are slower and don’t want to chase the bait during the cold months, so slowly retrieve your fly. Nothing beats battling chunky pan fish on a 4 or 5wt fly rod. Happy fishing, warm thoughts and tight lines.

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“Just one more fish, then I’ll head home.” How many times have we all said that. Is it an addiction or an appreciation and love of fishing? I would say the latter, while my wife would say an addiction. Even when we do catch that “one more fish”, we start over again and say “just one more fish and then I’ll go home.” When does it end? Usually when it gets dark, too cold to hold the rod or your significant other calls you asking when you’re coming home.

But what if that next fish is the big one? What if this whole time you’ve been fishing in the wrong spot and if you go down the shore a little bit rather than heading home, you snag that big one? What if you change your lure and go smaller? Will that entice the “just one more fish” to bite?

You may never know unless you go by the rule of “just one more fish”. Maybe you should switch from your spinning rod to a fly rod. Maybe a clouser minnow on a fly rod will get that big small mouth to bite. You know he’s down there. You anticipate him biting everytime you reel in your line but he doesn’t bite. You don’t get frustrated, you just get more curious as to what that fish is thinking. Sure, your supper is getting cold and your wife is getting perturbed but there’s a big fish down there and you’ve got to catch him. Fret not, as fishermen we’re all in the same boat and we understand our love which others may call a disease or addiction. It’s the joy of fishing. It’s the excitement of the hunt for the big one and it’s just one more fish.

This past Saturday was an excellent day of fishing in Indiana where I live. Within an hour, I caught about two dozen bluegill, a nice white bass and about a 3-pound largemouth bass on Morse Reservoir in Noblesville, IN. The only problem, I only had an hour to fish. A front was moving through, it was nice and cloudy, it was perfect conditions for fishing. And apparently perfect conditions for a neighborhood yard sale of which I tended over for most of the day. In the end, the fishing was much more productive in the hour I had compared to the 6 hours spent at the yard sale.

It’s times like these when I wish I had a time machine or at the very least a time freezer. Sunday may have been a good day, the front had moved through and there was light rain but I was on the road visiting family. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and I love visiting them and I don’t want to start any family wars. But if I had a time freezer, I could freeze time, visit the family, come back and unfreeze time to see if Sunday was a good day of fishing. If not, there’s always football.

Perhaps I should schedule my life around the weather and pressure fronts. If it’s cloudy, a front is moving through, or it’s lightly raining; then that is fishing time. When it’s sunny and clear skies with high pressure, that’s family road trip time. Or perhaps I could always clone myself. While one of me does everything but fishing, the other does only fishing. The only problem with that I could see is that I get jealous of the fishing me. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow or right now. Happy fishing and tight lines.

My son is 11-years old and while I taught him to fish many moons ago, I’ve recently taught him more advanced ways of fishing. The first lesson I taught him was learning to use a spinning reel. Not a difficult lesson but a rewarding one. But a month ago or so, my son wanted to try out my fly rod as I was catching more blue gill with it compared to his spinning reel. Now teaching someone how to use a fly rod and reel takes a little more patience and a little more time. In fact, I would say, mastering a fly rod and reel takes a lifetime of patience and learning. But in minutes, he got the basic timing of the cast down and was able to cast a dry fly out onto the water for the panfish to grab. It was no “River Runs Through It” moment on the great trout streams of America, but it was a memorable time. And a it’s hobby I look forward to sharing with him for the rest of my life, the same way my dad has shared it with me.

My daughter just turned two but I can’t wait until the day I teach her to fish and she catches her first fish. Right now, when I catch a fish, she screams and doesn’t want to get near it. We’ll need to work on that but we’ve got time.

I could explain how low and high pressure works and how it relates to cold and warm fronts and what a stationary front is and the rotation of the Earth and the Coriolis force but I won’t bore you. You don’t want to be a meteorologist, you just want to fish. So I’ll explain in fishermen terms when the best time to fish and where the fish are during different weather.

Warm fronts go with low pressure. The air is warm and moist and rising producing clouds. Cold fronts go with high pressure. The air is dry and cold producing clear, sunny skies. When a warm front is passing, the pressure drops and the fish start feeding because they know a possible storm system is approaching and they want to eat up before the lightning spooks them and the impending winds which will whip up the water making it more difficult to see baitfish. So fish on the surface or right below it when you hear that a warm front is moving in.

When a cold front is passing, the pressure rises, the clouds disappear and the fish run for cover and the deep waters. They also tend not to feed as aggressively. The fishing probably won’t be that good, but if you’re going to fish, try crank baits and jigs to go down deep. It’s also best to avoid clear lakes during cold fronts and go for the murky water lakes for any chance at catching a lot of fish.

The last front is the stationary front. A stationary front is the area between two different fronts. Neither is strong enough to push the other out of the way, so an area between the two weak fronts is the stationary front. The stationary front tends to share characteristics of both a warm and a cold front. It could be cloudy or it could be sunny. The air pressure in a stationary front is constant and unchanging. While this pressure could be high or low, fish tend to acclimate to it and begin acting like normal and eating normal. They won’t go on a feeding frenzy but they also won’t go dormant.

So to rate fronts, when you see a warm front is approaching your area, it’s probably a good time to catch some crazy feeding fish on the surface or right below. During a stationary front, the fishing can be anywhere from ok to great like during a warm front. When a cold front approaches, the fish tend to stop feeding and go to darker waters either under cover and brush or down deep. This usually is not the best time to fish. But then again, it’s never really a bad time to fish, just a bad time for catching fish.

While I love fishing topwaters and dry flies, sometimes the fish aren’t there. When there are no clouds out and the sun is shining bright, the fish tend to go to deeper waters, bottom cover and off the ledges. This is a good time to get out the crankbaits. Crankbaits allow you to fish the deep depths down to about 20 feet depending on the lip of the crankbait. Crankbaits are also popular because they mimic the bait fish the big fish go after.

The first step in crankbait fishing is to choose the right color and the right depth. Take a look at the bait fish that are swimming around or ask a fellow fisherman and pick a crankbait based on the color of the baitfish. For murkier waters, it’s sometimes good to go with a brighter color crankbait like orange, yellow or white. Using a medium-action rod toss the crankbaits up to the shore lines, along cover, down drop offs and around any deep cover like rocks, trees and brush. Crank baits work better when you retrieve them in areas where there aren’t many weeds. They tend to snag on weeds but can be bounced off the bottom because the hooks hover higher than the lip of the crankbait. Also by varying up your retrieve, you can dial in your speed and figure out how the fish are hitting. Sometimes depending on fronts and barometric pressure, the fish are moving slower and won’t go after a fast moving bait. Other times when a front is moving on and the barometric pressure is fluctuating, fish tend to go on a feeding frenzy and will go after the fast running crankbaits.

The biggest part of fishing crankbaits, as is anything involving fishing, is to learn the waters, the baitfish and ask the local fisherman what works best for them. You can learn a lot by simply taking a little time before tossing your line out to study the waters and the spots where the fish seem to congregate. Good luck and happy fishing.

Fishing isn’t really all about actually catching fish. It’s about getting away and getting on the water and being able to actually breathe and relax. Whether it’s with good friends or just by yourself, there something very calming and satisfying about throwing a lure out there, reeling it in and hoping something bites. But whether we admit it or not, it’s also satisfying to actually catch a fish every once in a while. But what do you do when the fish aren’t biting. You downsize.

Some of my favorite rods to fish with are my ultra-light rod and my 5 weightt fly rod. With the ultra-light rod, a little Rooster Tail usually gets some action. When you want to catch fish, go after the little ones. Run a rooster tail along the banks and the cover where the “bait fish” congregate. You might not catch a trophy but you’ll catch plenty of pan fish. Just get yourself a decent ultra-light rod and reel with about 4 pound line on it and plenty of Rooster Tails, grub spinners and other ultra-light lures and go have some fun.

And if you love top water action, nothing beats a fly rod and a dry fly. It doesn’t much matter what type of dry fly as long as it’s fuzzy and floats, pan fish will go after it unlike the picky trout. A decent 4 or 5 weight fly rod with floating line will work but if you want to have some fun grab yourself a 2 or 3-weight fly rod and reel. With a small weight fly rod, those tiny pan fishes will feel like big bass. Wooly buggers, streamers and other wet flies also work really well for catching pan fish.

The ultimate reward of ultra-light fishing is when you do hook into the occasional small mouth or other large fish. So if you’re feeling out of luck on the water or you just want that smell of fish on your hands, grab your ultra-light rod and reel or your fly rod and have some fun. Because in the end, fishing is all about having fun.

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