Starting the New Year out right
Blog by: David Coulson , CO 1/2/2019 (Return to blogs)
Back in the 80's when I lived in Grand Junction, Colorado a group of us made a point of fishing New Year's day, period. Hangovers or bad weather be damn, we went fishing, typically ice fishing on the Grand Mesa. At the time Colorado's fishing license schedule was annual, so the idea was we had to break the license in correctly, as in use it as soon a possible, if we expected to have good fishing the remainder of the year.
After moving to Fort Collins, Colorado, I let this tradition lapse. Numerous reasons, but laziness and my increasingly low tolerance for cold were the primary. It's not that I dislike ice fishing or winter river fishing, which is colder, it was the pain I felt in my extremities while and after fishing. Even today, fishing when temperatures get around and below 40 my hands begin to feel chilled to the point of hurting.
My dislike of cold is one of the reasons, once I retired and took to the road that we now "winter" in warmer climes, currently Bastrop, Texas, southeast of Austin, where it's in the 40's and raining hard. Yesterday, it was warm, hitting 50, but it was windy as all get out. Still, the waters around here are open, and while chilly the bass can be coaxed into occasionally biting.
So yesterday, I donned winter apparel, which was light gear compared to what ice fishing requires, braved the wind and took the first step toward renewing an old tradition, fishing New Year's day. It help that this old man went to bed early and sober the night prior.
I'm pleased that outing was a success in I managed a few bass, one of which was decent by my standards, around 19 inches. I don't know if fishing New Year's day really means fishing 2019 will be great, but it's an auspicious start.
Even a double the first outing of 2019
Nice 19 inch Texas Bass
Blog content © David Coulson
Comments
Lloyd Tackitt
01.02.19 2:44 PM
Auspicious to say the least. I've caught a lot of bass in my life, but I've never caught a double like that!
Happy New Year and may all of your fishing trips yield at least as much as this one did.
David Coulson (author, aka Flyrodn)
01.02.19 2:46 PM
Thanks Lloyd for the kind words. Happy New Year to you.
fishthumpre
01.02.19 4:59 PM
Really happy to see you staying on with your writing for Fish Explorer, and looking forward to hear how you're doing down in Texas.
About the Author
To say fly fishing is a passion for Dave is an understatement, he lives by the adage, �fly fishing isn�t a matter of life or death, it�s much more important than that.� Simply, if it�s a fish, then Dave�s willing to chase it on a fly. This includes making two or three trips a year out of state to places like Alaska, Canada, East and West Coasts to fly fish for salmon, northern pike and salt water species, such as redfish. The rest of the time Dave spends his time plying Colorado waters with a fly rod for everything the state has to offer such as bass, perch, crappie, bluegill, walleye, catfish, pike and yes even trout with a fly.