Seasons Shift so Quickly

It seems so terribly recent to me that Asher and I were trudging along snowy creek banks and contending with high water. Yet last week we fished from float tubes without waders, and the water felt really good. I leave today to fish in Texas, and there isn't even a sweatshirt in my bag. Before I know it, though, colorful leaves will be falling and soon after we'll all be complaining about the cold, instead of the heat.

Bullfrogs, Bugs & a Boat Ride

Eli and I did manage to catch a bass yesterday afternoon, but that didn't really matter. More significantly, we heard bullfrogs croaking as the sun began sinking, saw a spider enjoying a really good catch, and took the johnboat for a lap around the pond.

We both croaked back at the frogs, although I'm not convinced they were impressed. Eli, who is big fan of bugs and somewhat of a collector, wanted to rob the spider of it's dinner, but I vetoed that notion. In the boat, I did the bulk of the paddling, but Eli took control while I was untangling some line. He also did a fine job of paddling us to the shore when it was time to call it a night.

I actually had a work objective for our little evening outing. Eli helped me with a video that I'll share after it is posted. More valuable than my work or catching fish, though, was a bit of one-on-one time outdoors on a summer evening.

Pond Play

It's tough for Nathaniel and me to resist a quick trip to the pond on a nice afternoon, and we rarely regret the decision to go.

Results vary a surprising amount from day to day, considering we fish the same couple of small ponds most of the time. Sometimes the action is great; occasionally they are really tough. Typically we land at least a few fish and miss a few others.

Saturday sort of fell in the middle. We probably spent an hour and a half fishing, making one lap around the perimeter of the beaver pond, plus a pass through the center, and I believe we caught seven or eight fish. All except one were bass. I caught a single chunky bluegill on a Bobby Garland Stroll'R. The most productive single bait, which Nathaniel was throwing, was a 1/4-ounce BOOYAH Buzzbait.

Most days, one good lap around the pond is enough to get the fish sort of used to us being there and the bite slows. The beaver ponds holds out a little longer than the other ponds because it has cover throughout it and the fish are as likely to be in the middle as on the bank most days.

Fortunately, the bite typically wanes about the same time as I get ready to abandon the johnboat seat and to head back home to settle in for the evening. I'd keep fishing if the fish were really hammering our baits, but an hour or two typically is just enough to make for a very nice outing on a summer afternoon.

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.