Fishing Forum

Another skunk from shore on the west side of UL. I do this every year, trying to hit the earliest first panfish/catfish/bass bite, knowing I'm early, but thinking just maybe..I left from work only half prepared which limited me to shore work, and ran north and south of Pelican Bay marina prospecting for bluegills and crappie in the rushes, casting anchovies for cats, and throwing a few spinners and roadrunners for WB. NADA!

Met a young lady cruising for carp with a fancy wheelie bow, and showed her where I often see carp, but I saw none. Which was funny because I saw some rummaging in the shallows for food last week. I did see a few bump into phrag leftovers out in 3-4' of water, but it just aint time yet. One fella that hits the lake every day said he had a few LMB earlier in the week, but nobody I saw fishing had caught anything.

As a warm water/panfisherman without a bigger boat, this is the time of year I am always POSITIVE I am missing out on something somewhere. Like ANY MINUTE now the crappie are gonna show up in the sunken tumbleweed piles against the shore at UL, but I could only get down there last night. Or, the bass and bluegills in Mantua will be rushing to the warming shallows literally by 3 pm today, but I was there this morning and could only stay til 11 am.

Oh well, the good thing is this time of the year, next time really probably will be better!
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[#0000FF]I admire dedication...and optimism. Fishing would be dull without them. Sorry you didn't get more love but we both know it will come soon...with the increasing warmth in the water.

This time of year things can change drastically from one day to the next...or even at different times on the same day. As they say about the lottery..."You can't win if you don't play."

Unrewarded optimism is infinitely better than proven pessimism.

What is an optimistic pessimist? A guy who says "My glass is half full...but I just know some sucker is gonna knock it over."
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I consider myself a hopeful realist. Life has taught me to expect disappointment, but I have never seem to learn my lesson for long. . [] It's the up side of having adult ADD.

Like the bumper sticker says, " It's no use being pessimistic because it'll never work anyway."

If I could learn to get excited about catching small trout, or learn a bit more about walleye, this time of the year wouldn't be so full of painful but giddy anticipation. It's like waiting for Christmas but nobody will tell you exactly how many days are left!

But what usually happens, like last year, is that one fine day I catch a nice bluegill right away off the dock, then a other, then a 15" largemouth on the tiny jig, and we're off, and the day ends with 25 fish mixed bag of almost every species. [cool]

And I love when it happens to everybody, and the kids are all holding up fish and the dads that don't fish much are pulling em out, and a casual fisherman pulls iut a "huge" (cookie cutter) catfish etc...
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