Turning The Corner

Another old one I wrote for www.sexyloops.com

Quite appropriate as I'm getting ready for this Autumn's 1st seabass trip in Tokyo bay on Monday.  

As Bernd deal's with a freeze, we're starting to warm up here. It's still down at or around freezing at night, but with daytime temperatures getting up to double figures and the days slowly stretching out, I can't help but feel some sense of optimism about the coming season. 

The seabass are well and truly back from the spawn and they're in good condition too. I was out the other night and although it was freezing with sleet and rain we managed a few fish.  The timing of that and the warming weather is probably playing a big part in my anticipation-even wearing good waterproof gear a cold soaking definitely puts you in the mood for summer. 

 I'll probably have time to do another few trips before I leave them alone and focus completely on enjoying the day time fishing through spring and summer.  The warmer days are certainly increasing the carp activity and they are starting to eat a bit more confidently during the middle of the day, and as soon as I finish this I'm going a walk down the river for an hour or 2  to see if I can get a couple fish before the light starts to drop.

I was considering an early smallmouth foray, but I'll leave that for next week as the warming trend is forecast to continue. That'll also give me time to knock up a few streamers for the bigger girls that are starting to move up out of the dammed areas of the rivers for the pre-spawn feed. I'm going to play about with pop lips on the smallies this year, I don't know why I haven't used them in the rivers yet, but I certainly have high hopes for them.