Good day fishing. A bad day catching.

Winter fishing can be a fickle mistress. December 2nd in Northwest Indiana should mean snow and ice. Not the nice white fluffy snow but that dirty grayish snow so common to steel towns.

It’s 61 degrees with a south wind changing randomly to west south west. Overcast, the sun tries hard to burn though the veil of fog that shrouds the lake. A stealth bomber makes a random appearance during the day, banking over the lake to our north before disappearing into the fog. Rain keeps threatening, but can’t deliver.

It’s always a gamble with fishing. That’s why we do it, I think. Then again what the hell do I know?

A lot less than I think I do. That’s for sure.

We were after browns and carp. There’s always carp here, it’s what it’s known for in local fishing lore. Not a single golden bone was seen and the water is still too warm for the trout. These are what we call excuses. The shad were plenty. We snagged a bunch. On almost every retrieve was a silver fish spiked on a hook. Stupid shad. They have no excuse. Evolve or die.

One brown was caught. It needed to grow for a few years before it came to play again.

Winter fishing also means one thing. You start the day in pitch black and end it in pitch black. This leads me to another thought stolen from Douglas Adams, “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so”.