Fishing in the Central Valley: Never give up, unless you’re just too cold

I’ve never really liked the cold, so winter isn’t my favorite time of year - especially as an angler.

I think my father had a lot to do with my negative attitude about “ chilly” too.

It started way back when I was in my early teens and my dad had a buddy who was catching a lot of trout and crappie. Great, but The kicker was that the guy was fishing at night at a local lake In the freezing cold .

The catching part was okay, but I didn’t like the sound of winter night fishing. My father was never really bothered by cold and he couldn’t understand why I didn’t have this same resistance to deep freeze conditions.

He could work in the cold, while I would be losing the feeling in my hands. I didn’t get much slack, being a farmer’s son. I also hated cold because as a decathlete I had to run fast interval training whether it was cold and windy or not. Running 100-500 yard repeats at high speed in running shorts left me feeling like a popsicle. I liked to be warm and loose and I hated running in heavy sweats.

So, my father just loves the idea of doing some night fishing and he collects a few old gas lanterns, designs some hangers to hold the lanterns over the water - and gathers the best cold weather clothes we’ve got such as an extra pair of jeans, some wool work shirts, a pullover cap and one of those old jackets that weren’t cold proof at all.

We obviously didn’t have cold rated clothing but we did have fish to catch, and if there were any other issues you just had to suck it up and suffer.

Oh yeah… suffer!

So we’re up at the lake and the forecast was for a low temperature of about freezing. Tying our 18 foot boat up to some trees in a cove, it was rapidly becoming foggier as well as colder as dusk set in. The chill was already penetrating my clothing , and a breeze was coming up. It went right through me.

My dad was right at home. How would I survive the night. Even the sleeping bag didn’t help much as the freezing fog penetrated the flimsy cloth. My father is sitting in his fishing chair on the front deck, happy as a clam while fishing under the lights hanging over the side in the foggy swirling darkness. we eventually attracted a bunch of trout and crappie that were biting our minnows.

My main problem was that my hands were getting so numb I could barely hook the minnows . The night wore on, and the real deep freeze set in.

I gave up on fishing, instead shivering all over as I tried to keep covering up and getting warm.. The water was actually warmer than the freezing air, so putting your hands into the minnow bucket while trying to get one to put on your hook, helped for about 10 second . After that the remaining moisture on your hands froze. Toward the early morning, I vowed I would never do this again.

Yes, the fish were biting and we caught some very nice crappie and trout under the lights but I was never so glad to see the fog slowly dissipate as the sun began coming up and the fish left the area. I was still bone cold but there was hope I would get warm again someday.

Later, on the way back to the dock, my dad turned to me and said, “that was great! We caught a bunch of fish and we didn’t have any competition! We need to do this again right away! “

I stayed silent. Fast forward another month, and you guessed it … my dad was ready for another trip. I’ve found that our brains can be very weird, especially when the things we said we would never do again slowly fade away as we forget the suffering. Besides my dad was very persuasive, and we had caught a lot of fish .

Maybe I just was not well prepared that last time.

Okay, I went again, and it was just as bad as the first time. My poor father tried several times after that second trip to entice me to go again but I had had enough.

Ever since those experiences , if it sounds like it’s going to get really cold those vivid memories of fishing in a deep freeze (and my frozen hands not working) pop into my mind.

Yep, Never give up- unless you’re freezing.

Roger George: rogergeorge8@protonmail.com, Rogergeorgeguideservice on Facebook and @StriperWars.