All these folks from up North that end up moving to and living in the South are kinda like this winter.

It found that living in the South was the thing to do so it came and stayed not thinking that it is the cause for the extended cold. Now if it decides to move even farther south we will be in a heck of a mess. Try receding back northward and everything will again return to normal.

Normal is what we need to kick off the fishing really good. This month and even the last few days of February saw the bass begin to bite, not like they will in May, but really good for the end of the winter.

Some 30-pound catches in five fish were brought in everyday last week, except for those that we had to take their word for the catch. They did like most of us and returned them to the water after catching them. Not all the fish were big ones, but there were a great many 7- and 8-pounders caught and shown or caught and released. A lot of the average-size bass were caught also. Healthy and fat was the condition of these fish and that is good as they will be losing some weight during the rest of the bedding season.

A lot of our local folks, myself included, kinda put off going to the lake because of the cool weather or the wind was blowing too much, yet the out-of-town folks go no matter what the conditions if they are not life-threatening.

One fellow last week said he had been coming to Lake Seminole every year since he was 10 years old. He is in his 30s and is still coming.

Even a fellow from 300 miles away will have learned what to do on this lake to catch a fish even in tough conditions after that long. I am fairly sure we will see him next year unless something bad happens.

I talked to another fellow that was telling me that his son was standing on the dock and out of five casts he boated three jackfish. Knowing him as I do, there was no way he was going to let him throw the jackfish back into the water. He smiled and told me they eat them the night before he talked to me. So we know that bass and jackfish are starting to bite quite good and some of them are of good size.

Over a lifetime of fishing, I have discovered that cold water produces a larger average fish that does warm water. Of course you may just catch a big ole bass in December or in July, but average size of the entire catch should be a little larger from cool water and they taste better.

One fellow I talked to this week had gone with a group of fishermen to camp on the Hooch and eat what they could catch. Eight not so very large catfish was what they were looking at for dinner. So he goes up to a hole on the river and he and his partner quickly caught 30 crappie so that the fightin’ fishermen would not go hungry that night. He finally told me that he had put some canned sausages in the boat along with a few crackers if worse came to worse. As big as he is there was no way that he would risk doing without food. They caught all the crappie on minnows though he is a good jig fisherman. I guess he was not going to risk the possibility of remotely missing a meal.

We used to cook out after fishing on Thursday afternoons and we never did leave hungry. Sometimes we had more french fries and hush puppies than we had though we would need to get by, but most times the fish were caught and fried and consumed. Probably need to do that again sometimes.

You fish harder if you know that what is swimming around off out there in the water is what you will be having for dinner that night. You have to entice that particular fish to get on your line and then let you get him to the boat and in the livewell. It doesn’t sound all that hard, but try it with your stomach growling.