...Any Fish in December is a Good Fish

One of my favorite phrases is “any fish in (insert the months of December, January, or February) is a good fish”. During those three months fish can be caught of course, but it is certainly more difficult. I’ve had thirty striper nights in January and caught carp sitting in a snow bank in the shortest month. Still, fishing is not consistent, and each fish caught is definitely not taken for granted.  For every great day or night in the winter, there can be five or six blanks in a row.

I had the last two days off from work. I couldn’t have dialed up more perfect December weather for fishing. Thursday was cloudy and misty. The high temp was around fifty degrees. The water was much colder than that, so the warmer air should have gotten the fish active. Friday was even better. It stayed warm all night Thursday night/Friday morning. Friday was again in the fifties. It rained on and off all night Thursday and showered all day Friday. The warm rain obviously warmed the water a few degrees. All of this warm weather should have gotten the fish active. I have seen fish get active many times when the temperature rises just a few degrees.

Thursday I went carp fishing from 10 am until 3:30. I went with one of my friends. We tried to different venues and hit multiple spots in each water body. Four rods out, not one hit.

Friday, I mixed things up and tried for some wintertime brown trout. I fished a few hours. I used shiners on one rod and lures on the other. Two rods, no hits, see a pattern.

At this point I fished 7 hours on my days off with not so much as a hit. I considered not going striper fishing Friday night. I knew traffic would be awful. Then I remembered it was going to be biting ass cold Saturday, so I didn’t want to waste the warm rainy night. So I sucked it up and went fully expecting to get blanked. Luckily, the fish were there. In two hours I ended up with six schoolies. I caught them on Zoom flukes. None were all that big but… any fish in December is a good fish!