Snow & Ice

Sunday plans put me on an airplane to Erie, Pennsylvania to spend a few days on the ice with FLW Tour pro Dave Lefebre. I've been looking forward to the trip for a few reasons. First, it's ice-fishing, and I haven't been on the ice yet this winter. Also, I've never gotten to fish with Dave. Closely related, Dave truly loves ice-fishing, and my favorite fishing trips are almost always with people who are doing the kind of fishing they are passionate about or sharing a favorite destination. Finally, Lake Pymatuning, which we'd hoped to make a primary destination, has become one of my favorite lakes in the last couple of years, but I've only fished open water there.

Ice conditions could be iffy, though, so I'm not sure how our plans might end up shifting. It has been wonderfully cold up there in recent days (as in well below zero, around the clock), but I gather that the thin early ice had just enough snow on it to insulate it from the coldest cold and the ice hasn't thickened as much as one might think it would have. An even bigger concern is that warmer weather is forecast to arrive just ahead of me. Saturday is supposed to bring high 40s and rain, which can't be good for ice conditions.

We might switch venues or even go out in a boat somewhere if the warm rain does too much thawing. Or we might end up having to cancel. Or, the forecast may shift again, and it might be cold up there this weekend. I learned long ago that what the weatherman says on Wednesday only tells me so much about what will happen on Saturday, especially in the realm of complex winter systems.

Bugle Lips & Bread Battles -- Pymatuning Spillway

"Cheap entertainment," a mother said through a smile as her children threw 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 was 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.