At Season's End
Moose Lake is Icing Over Already
Well, it’s November and the open-water fishing season on Moose Lake came to an abrupt end this year. My hopes for some late season smallmouth & walleye fishing were dashed by a couple snowstorms and several record low temperatures last week. The south end of Moose lake is already iced up as are the ponds and most of the small lakes. The last several years would have one thinking “wow! this is early”, but it’s actually a lot closer to normal than we want to believe.
Time to Clean Up The Fishing Tackle
So now I’ll need to shift gears. It’s deer hunting season in Minnesota but for me, it’s more of an opportunity to sneak in an afternoon nap if I can find a comfortable log to settle in on. Safe ice fishing is still a little way away so I’ll use the next few weeks to clean up all my tackle messes that have piled up over the season. I fish several different techniques and often mix and match tackle to fit the task at hand.
Unfortunately, much of that stuff winds up in a spot in my house I refer to as the “work room.” The work room is a perpetual work in progress. Rather than scramble for the “stuff” I need when I need it, I try to organize “stuff” to make it easy to grab and go when I can.
Now, with a little extra time to clean up, maintain, and re-organize all my “stuff,” I need to seize this time to get ready for ice fishing and to be ready for when the grips of winter ease in lieu of the next open-water season…maybe six months from now!
Note to self…take the unexpected spare time you get and make the most of it, otherwise all those “tackle messes” will wind up right where you left them, come spring.
