By Guide Rick Buss:
If you’re like most of the kayak angling community, you’ve probably got some degree of the mid-winter ailment commonly referred to as “cabin fever.” The people who study these things have a few theories about the length of the day and the brightness of the sun. Some folks sit under special lights to compensate for the natural light they’re not getting. As I write this article, there are only 40 days until the first day of spring, but you can feel it coming if you get out of the wind and face the sun.
Recently, I’ve been fishing from the ceilings of a few local ponds with my friend, Bill Eicher (Billy Bass on NEKF.com). Although we haven’t been slaying ’em, we’ve spent a lot of enjoyable hours soaking up sunshine and chewing the fat. We mostly fish on lakes and ponds with a large variety of fish, so it’s always a surprise to see what comes out of the hole. Some wild ideas are hatched and discussed during these outings. One of my doozies was to drill a few holes in a favorite carp pond we usually fish in the fall and bait those holes for a week or so—then see if we can catch a big one through the ice. This gives a whole new meaning to corn hole. Sound far-fetched?
Another friend, Eric Harrison (Slappy on forums e v e r y w h e r e) caught a keeper striper through the ice on the same pond. I don’t know if it will happen, but it might. What else is there for winter fishing? A few years back, I went fishing with Captain Walsh out of Lynn on a “snowball” cod trip. We got into serious action with cod, pollock and haddock. You really stay warm jigging ’em up from 200 feet. I was sore for two days. The chowder helped a lot!
Now that all the reels are serviced, line checked, replaced and/or reversed if needed and my tackle is sorted, what do I do until mid-April when I start flounder pounding? I know! I’m going to make a long spear, frog gig type thing and take a kayak out in my home marsh and try to spear some hibernating eels in the mud. I read an article about old timers doing it through ice on ocean bays in the old days. Heck, I’m gonna give it a go from my kayak. I told you, some crazy ideas get hatched when the delirium of cabin fever sets in.
Go get some sunshine!
Guide Rick Buss, (617) 719-2036, www.belleislekayakadventures.com. Kayak specialist and fishing guide Rick Buss fishes, dives and snorkels off his kayak. He runs his guide service out of Belle Isle in Winthrop but can deliver kayaks to your location.