Someone jokingly said “lets go fishing” last Saturday.  With a low of 8 degrees and a high well below freezing at my house, not nearly enough degrees out there, I declined.  But I have been out there fishing in weather about that bad.

    In a January Sportsman Club tournament more than 20 years ago I drove by First National bank at 5:30 AM on the way to Sinclair.  The bank thermometer read 11 degrees.  About a dozen of us showed up at Little River landing just before sunrise but the lake was so low we could not use that ramp.

    Rather than giving up we all headed to Sinclair Marina where the ramp is much steeper and goes out into deeper water.  The first boat was launched with no problem, but when the trailer was pulled out the water running off it froze on the ramp.

    The next person backing down the ramp warned it felt slippery and when he pulled out he had to spin  his tires to get up the ramp.

    By the time I backed down the ramp I started sliding before my trailer tires hit the water.  Luckily I slide straight, and as soon as my van tires hit the water I stopped.  The ice ended at water’s edge.  Then I had to “burn rubber” all the way up the ramp, melting through the thin layer of ice all the way to the top.  Everyone after the first two had the same experience.

    It was miserably cold but I ran the few miles to the Highway 441 Bridge where I felt I had my best chance of getting a bite.  Every cast I had to dip my rod in the water to melt the ice out of the guides. The water temperature was in the upper 30s, as low as I had ever seen it.

Since I knew the bass would be very sluggish I tried casting to the pilings and reeling my crankbait very slowly by it.  I had to slow down to a crawl, just barely keeping the bait moving, but I caught seven keeper bass, enough to win the tournament!

    Luckily the sun on the ramp melted the ice so we had no trouble pulling out. But when I went by the bank on the way home at 5:00 PM it showed the high for the day, 17 degrees!

    A February Flint River tournament at Jackson gave me a thrill but not from catching fish.  When we took off I headed up the lake on plane, running about 40 MPH just before sunrise.

    Suddenly there was a horrible grinding sound. I stopped the boat, just knowing I had blown a power head. But then I saw the sheet of ice running from bank to bank. It was only a half inch thick, but when the boat hit it the sound was awful.  That is one of the few times my bass boat was an ice breaker!

    For some reason on my Christmas trips to Clarks Hill, every year the weather seemed to get much worse after Christmas Day. On year back in the 1990s I woke to howling wind and sleet.  It was not comfortable, and everywhere I tried to fish the wind made it impossible.

I finally pulled in behind an island where a rock pile was protected from the wind and caught an 8.2-pound bass on a crankbait. It was the only bite I had in the four hours I forced myself to fish.   

One year I took Linda to the Augusta Airport the day after Christmas to fly to Salisbury MD to visit her folks.  My dog Merlin and I went back to the lake.  We were staying in my small camping trailer and the only heat was a small electric heater.

During the night Merlin jumped up in bed with me. She always slept on the floor by the bed so that was strange. But when I got up the next morning I saw why, her water bowl on the floor was frozen solid.

The little heater kept it tolerable about three feet above the floor at bed level, but the uninsulated floor was below freezing.

That got me worried. Back then I heated my house on Rebecca Circle with a wood burning insert.  There was no heat in the house while I was gone. I called my neighbor and ask her to check to see if she heard water running. She called back and said she did not hear water but my well pump was running steadily.

I knew what that meant and headed home.  I learned how to solder copper pipe the next day, there were 11 split pipes under the house. The well pump had pumped the well dry and that is why it was still running.

I have been ice fishing one time in my life. One January a hard freeze got my upper pond hard on top.  I went out to the end of my dock, knocked a small hole in the inch thick ice with a pipe, and dropped a piece of fish food on a small hook into the water.

After a few minutes a small bluegill hit it and I landed it through the ice. That remains and probably will always remain the only ice fishing fish I have caught.

I think I will hook the boat up and head to the lake!!