Winter Chilled Again

A week ago today, the afternoon got so nice that Nathaniel and I just had to slip out to the ponds for a short outing. We fished the beaver pond and caught five fish, including the big one pictured above, in about an hour of fishing. (Be sure to check out the video report if you've not done so already!)

Nathaniel and I have both been itching to get back out ever since that day, but neither has had a good opportunity. That is until yesterday, when Nathaniel had the afternoon free. However, his return trip was in the middle of a cold spell that reminds us winter isn't over, and the wind was blowing fairly hard. Nathaniel spend three or four hours and tried a variety of approaches, fishing all three ponds, and the grand sum of his catch was exactly zero fish.

Seeing how severely the pond fish change their attitudes with weather changes makes me think about the 53 anglers who are about to compete for half a million dollars in the Bassmaster Classic. They've spent three days practicing, so far, but conditions are changing daily on Grand Lake O' the Cherokees, and they only get one more partial day to practice before the big event begins on Friday. As of now it looks like the Classic will start out very cold (low of 27 on Friday) but a slight warming trend will occur (high of 68 on Sunday). Of course, that might change a lot between now and then!