Update - Spring Goal No. 2 - Catch a 4 lb.+ Largemouth

Finally winter's hoary grasp is broken! The high today reached 78 degrees. I spent the day earning my bread but secretly lamenting that I was indoors. While running errands during the workday I noted that the spring fires had started billowing their charcoal plumes on the horizon and just this morning the songbirds were waxing poetic in a way that I swear I hadn't heard in ages. Naturally, I buzzed out of work after my due diligence and proceeded immediately to buy my fishing license and pick up a copy of the 2014 regulations. Once home I Googled urban fishing locations in a desperate attempt to successfully wet a line. Somehow between bare-bones descriptions and grainy photos I found myself at a sequestered nature area in the middle of the big city. It didn't look like much but there were cars in the gravel parking lot and a big sign that denoted 15" slot limits for largemouth. Could this be a welcome omen?

In a word, no. Not even close. I started pitching a cone-eyed marabou/flashabou pattern in lime green and turquoise that was expertly tied by a friend. Despite my urge to rip a shallow-diving crankbait across the pond I let logic get the best of me and thought that I would try subtlety. I have to admit, the marabou pulsed wonderfully and the fly descended so slowly that I would have sworn that a strike was only casts away. I was utterly baffled after pitching it into every piece of cover I could find. Then I thought, "You fool, you need more reach!" Next I grab a heavy chartreuse curly-tailed jig and lob it gleefully to the distant shore. It sank far too quickly and I was forced to buzz it at inappropriate speed across the raccoon-tails. No such luck. Next I succumb to the shallow-diving crankbait, noting that the one other serious fisherman at the location had actually managed to hang a fish on a similar lure. I  spend the next 30 minutes probing and poking around every accessible nook and cranny. Nada.

Angry, I decide that I will now pull out all of the stops. I reach for the showstopper. New in the package--found inexplicably on the clearance rack of the local sporting goods store--the ultimate predatory fish slayer had recently come into my possession. Giant, gleaming, like a hammered copper relic of some druidic chieftain this lure was nothing short of enchanted. It even had the color-scheme of some wildling  palette---all black and red and yellow. Bold colors. Colors that one might find in natural plant dyes or warpaint. Can a simple amalgam of wire, beads, bucktail, and shining blades be sexy? Yes, this was practically a fertility symbol---even complete with facsimile fish roe. It was the ne plus ultra of predatory baits.


11/16 oz. Mepps Double Blade Agila (LINK)
#5 Copper Blades
Black Dress

As soon as my retrieve began I knew that I what was in store for me: ichthyological enlightenment. My Mitchell rod and Stren line could barely constrain the primal THUM THUM THUM that the hypnotizing copper blades were beating out. THUM THUM THUM. A state record largemouth. THUM THUM THUM. A Bass Pro Shops sponsorship. THUM THUM THUM. A new Nitro boat. THUM THUM THUM. Moby Dick in inland waters. THUM THUM THUM! Yet, before I knew it I had the lure in hand. It was no less magical, but I had no more fish than when I had started. I picked it up and looked at it disbelief, as if to say, "Surely you jest?" I cast to a promising weed-bed edge. THUM THUM THUM. No takers.

I turn from my early spring view. Something has to be wrong. Sadly, I must conclude that all the fish in Kansas are dead. They've all froze to death and their is nothing we can do about it. I guess I'll have to take up golf (and self-loathing) now. All my fishy dreams are dead (or the water temperature is still a little too low).