Through the first half of this month in the new year, we haven’t experienced much rainfall.

It rained this past weekend and we welcomed it, anything to get rid of the super cold that has been with us so far this year. Hardly enough rain to measure during the first rain this year, and I think that the folks to our north got that much of the wet stuff in snowfall. We lucked out on that.

My wife likes the cold weather, but even she has had enough this month. She said that she can’t wait to walk outside and feel the warm sunshine on her skin without having a cold wind blow it away. I am almost in agreement with her though I can do without as much cold as she likes. Weather that is cold enough to make the suckers move around and the old bucks having to walk just to stay warm is about all I need.

There were some days during the first week of the month that the bucks needed to run to help stay warm, and the suckers felt safe as the fishermen could hardly stand the cold water to get them out of the net. Regardless, the fishermen are at it for the rest of this month as the end of January ends the netting season and this past Friday saw the deer season also come to an end. I hope the season was a good one for you, both netting and hunting.

I can hardly believe what the weather did to us after Christmas and especially after New Year’s. We all expect to have some cold weather during the winter, but it hardly ever lasts more than three days and it is back warm again awaiting another cold front followed by another two or three days of cold weather.

Not this year, we had two weeks of bitter cold. To an old southern fellow that has lived here all his life, it almost hurt. Back in the early 80s, it got down in the lower to mid-teens on Christmas Eve night but the cold only lasted a couple or three days. We had a pipe to burst and realized it the next day.

I don’t expect it to get warm and stay warm, not with 10 days or so left in January, but we all hope it gets back to southwest Georgia winter-time temperatures. I have seen it snow in February and the first of March.

My brother’s birthday is the sixth of March, and we have snow flurries on his birthday way back in the ’50s. On the other hand there have been years that we never had a freezing night in February. We did have a few nights when the temperatures got in the 30s, but didn’t get below 32. It would suit me if it was that way this year as we have probably had enough severe cold to last for a year or two.

Good solid spring fishing or maybe I should call it good solid fish catching should begin after we have had a few weeks of warm sun. A few days of warm sun can get a few fish moving, but it takes more than a few days to get a crusty old body moving sometimes.

At the fishing show I attended in Mississippi, I saw a crankbait by a relatively new company called Koppers. They have bass, perch and crawfish as well as most other popular colors and shapes in a shallow as well as deep diving series. They should be available shortly here in southwest Georgia.

It may not get as hot as the Rat-L-Trap was several years ago, but it will do you a good job if you fish it. It won’t hurt your success rate to have a little confidence in the bait you are throwing. You catch more fish on a bait that you have confidence in because you will throw it more often and for longer periods of time.

You may pull a bait from your tackle box that you used 20 years ago and catch fish using it on your next trip. It may be a 20-year-old lure to you, but to the fish it is a new lure. There are no game fish that are 20 years old so they have never seen that new old bait. If it caught fish one time, it will again. Have some confidence in yourself. It will help feed your family.