Do I still fish?

Why yes, yes I do. Occasionally.

I really can't mount much of an effort to fish anymore. If I am going to go, its gotta be easy. Easy fish, thats good. Or easy fishing, i.e. nice clear shore with footpaths, also good. Trekking through bush, or stumbling along wild river banks, mmmmm, not so good. Really not liking this fucked up back bullshit. Constant, chronic pain just sucks the fun out of a lot of things.

I am happy to admit doing more spin fishing this year than in the past several decades. That was accomplished the first time I made a cast. At this point, I may be 50/50 in regards to gear and usage. I figure when I moved up here, that there would be times and situations where I might be better served with a wider arsenal of tools. So far it has worked out rather well.

While I had to invest in some newer tackle, I was happy to find that some of my old gear was still very useful. There was a certain nostalgia of opening my Old Pal fishing box, finding lures I had not used in decades, then catching fish with them. Apparently the Williams Warbler is effective today, as it was thirty years ago.

I think most surprising, was how fast I shook off the rust in regards to casting hardware. I was expecting a much steeper curve. Muscle memory is a wonderful thing. It took less than one outing to get myself to a point where my casting was functional enough that I felt comfortable with it, and not so worried at putting myself at some deficit by using it. Indeed, I was catching fish with it in short order.

I spent some time the other day canoeing about Dunlop Lake, where we bought some property. I have never, ever, seen structure like that before. In a different year, I imagine it would already be packed with smallies. With the stupidly long winter, things have been far from normal.....this according to the long time residents of the area. Especially the bugs. It was a perfect storm for their presence this year. Did not make for easy fishing.............so I wasn't fishing much during the worst of it.

So yeah, back to Dunlop. I have high hopes for the smallies fishing there. As I said, there is just some AMAZING structure that screams FISH. I was rather shocked at what I was seeing to be honest. It was if the lake had been designed by some fisherman. The kind of loving attention a golfer might put into designing his 'dream' course.

At this point in the year, I did not spot more than a couple of larger fish whilst paddling about. I did see several though. Lots of panfish. Probably should have attempted to cull some to make a fish stock. Oh well, no great loss, and there are other days. I expect in short order it should be easy fishing.