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With forecasts calling for a week featuring mild temperatures and a little rain, more and more anglers are ready to break out of their winter retreats and head to their favorite lakes for walleyes, crappies and bass.
Fishing is full of highs and lows. Every angler has special memories. It's all very personal. It's safe to say most of us reserve a special drawer in our memory banks for each season's first catches.
I have logged more than 50 first springtime fishing trips, so my memory bank is overflowing. I will share a few with you today and hope you might be willing to share a few of your own with me.
Walleyes are the main characters in many of my season debuts.
By mid-March in years past, my spinning reels were spooled up with a fresh 8-pound-test line and my jig boxes were loaded with marabou-dressed lead-heads and twister-tail grubs.
I enjoyed many a March sunset from the riprap face of Mosquito Lake's dam, casting and dragging my jigs for the season's first walleye. The hour before and after the sun's dip in the west was my favorite time to start each season.
I recall one particular trip when three 17-inch walleyes took my bait and twisted and turned as they fought my rod and reel. The first glimpses of each walleye as they neared the surface are etched in my brain.
Content with my catch, I drove home to filet the walleyes and fry them for dinner. No fish dinner has ever tasted better.
Crappies are a springtime favorite for anglers across Northeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. They were the fish Barb and I eagerly awaited as we towed our first boat to Berlin Reservoir, stopped at the bait shop for minnows and launched just as the mid-morning sun baked warmth into our shoulders.
One trip in particular stands out for the sheer number of crappies that nipped our minnow-sweetened hooks. We took no fish home that day, but had the time of our lives as our bobbers danced and dipped under the surface more than 50 times before we headed back to the ramp.
The fish were not big enough for the skillet, but we didn't care in the least.
They provided enough fun to kick-start that season to full throttle.
My first spring fishing trips for the past 25 years or more have been with largemouth bass in my sights.
Bass move up from their winter hideouts soon after the ice has melted. They are attracted to the warming shallows where they hunt for crawfish, shad and yellow perch--all of which begin to stir into action around the time the bass are starting to prowl.
So it's a perfect storm for the March bass angler looking to hook up with the season's first fish.
One particular day is vivid in my memory. Barb and I trailered over to West Branch Reservoir on a warm and overcast day. I tied on a willow-leaf spinnerbait and slow-rolled it around the numerous stumps and laydowns in West Branch's Jay Lake arm.
About an hour into the day, the spinnerbait stopped cold next to a big black stump and the water boiled as a big largemouth struck and turned.
The fish fought hard, running sideways and wallowing in the shallow water while resisting my efforts to drag it to the boat.
At five-pounds even, that largemouth was the perfect exclamation point for the start of another fine season.
Jack Wollitz's book, "The Common Angler," dives into the highs and lows that combine to make fishing a passion for so many people. He likes emails from readers. Send a note to jackbbaass@gmail.com.