Get There Attention

"The bass are there; I promise. No, they must be there." This is my mantra at the beginning of every season and when I come to think about it, Prospect Park newbies must here this echoing within their own soul as well. But they are there, aren't they? Yesterday, I hit my favorite cold water spot in the park behind the Ice Skating rink. They tell me that good cold water spots capture the most amount of sun within the day and have mud bottoms that retain most of the heat. Fish are cold blooded, and thus seek out these warmed spots. Or at least that is what they are suppossed to do. Yesterday, they did not do what they were supposed to do.With my two piece rod, 14 lb line and rattle shad dangling I made my first cast. I threw it right across a stretch of sun beaten water and reeled it fast to get the rattling to go, but no bite. I threw it again, slightly deeper into the sun rays, hoping to snag a bass with not even a nibble to reward my efforts. After the 116th cast, the questions started to seem more like statements: Did they take the fish out? They did take them out. Did the ice kill em' off? Hey, maybe it was the ice that got rid of em'. Whatever the case may be, I did everything in my power to get there attention, and it failed.

Normally, during the earlier times of the year ie. March, April and May, bass are in different stages of spawning. Specifically, cold weather bass will be staging for pre-spawn feeding frenzies. And all you have to do is get there attention and they will smack your hook with no problem. For this type of situation, my go to bait is genarlly a rattling shad. It typically contains to treble hooks, a lipless body and ball bearing that create a rattling noise when jigged correctly. But then again maybe they weren't in that mood yet. Only time will tell.

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Decide on Your Opening Day!

Welcome to another exciting year of fishing NYC parks and other commuter friendly haunts of old and new. Hopefully, this year I will have a chance of showcasing other lakes aside from Brooklyn's Prospect Park, and maybe sub featuring some saltwater trips that I will take this season. Congratulations to me, for yesterday marked the official opening day of my personal fishing season, and hopefully, yours is around the corner. Yesterday, while at work I began to rummage through some old in-promptu photos, stored in my cell phone, of some fish I caught at Prospect Park in the past years. I've had my current phone for over two years, and I luckily have alot of storage space. Fortunately, I discovered a new function within my phone. It seems that the date and time of the picture is stored along with the photo. Yes! I have been unknowingly keeping a visual fishing log. And although the recent warming trend has reminded me of a past year of March fishing, now I would have evidence.
And there it was; on March 26th 2007, at around 3:30 pm, I caught a spinner bait bass in Prospect Park. Now, if only my cell phone recorded temperature as well. But do not allow me to mislead you into believing that a mere time signature on cell phone photos influenced me into dusting of the old pole and scrouging around the tackle box for fishing jigs. The truth of the matter is that I hadn't been out at all around Prospect Park or any lake for that matter. In the past years, I've at least prodded around the lake with my polarized shades or even through some jigs at an ice clear opening in the lake. So why haven't I've gone fishing earlier? Why haven't other fisherman gone fishing earlier? What really decides the day that we go back on hunt for the largemouths and panfish?
For me, it was the four meetings that I had at work, and missing lunch, and the pizza slice that I so wanted that slipped out of my hand into a dark NYC puddle as I ran to explain to the police officer who was waving a small palm pilot like object at the registration sticker of my car, that I just needed two minutes to ward off starvation. With nothing else available for consumption, I swallowed my pride and drove home and made a decision to go fishing that day. Welcome Back. Read more!