The weather guessers said the weather would be nice the end of last week so I headed to my place at Clark’s Hill Wednesday afternoon. I needed to check to make sure everything was ok because I was afraid pipes may have frozen but wanted to fish, too. And the guessers were right – Thursday and Friday were beautiful.

I lucked out – no pipes were busted and no limbs from the pine trees around my trailer had fallen in the ice storm. But the bass didn’t seen to know conditions were perfect. I got two bites and landed one bass on Thursday and never got a bite on Friday.

The water temperature ranged from 54 to 65 degrees and should have been ideal for the bass to be feeding. The water was muddy but that is not unusual. But I fished many of my favorite places and the bass just were not there.

Fishing and staying at my place at Clark’s Hill always brings back great but bittersweet memories. I fished around the cover where daddy, mama and I spent countless days pulling crappie out of the button bushes. And in the trailer are their favorite chairs, empty for many years now since they both died 14 years ago, but I can still see them sitting there and talking to me.

I fished around an island where my first dog, Merlin, got out one day and tried to dig a beaver out of a clay bank. It took weeks to get all the Georgia red clay out of her coat. And I fished the rocky bank where I used to tied the boat in the summer and throw sticks for here to retrieve, and she would even bring back rocks I threw if they were in less than a foot of water. I could never understand how she found the rock I threw among all the others, but she always found the right one.

It broke my heart when she got where she could not stand and I had to have her put down when she was 14 years old. Dogs never live long enough.

I fished the docks at the boat club where I spent thousands of hours skiing when I was younger. Now my old body won’t let me water ski. The last time I tried about a 20 years ago my muscles hurt so bad I could hardly move for a week.

And I fished the cove where I shot two deer from my boat over Christmas holidays one year. I always spent the two week school holiday there, fishing, building brush piles and hunting. I was often by myself for days in a row, just me and Merlin.

Fishing has got to get better over there soon, but the memories will always be perfect.