It's funny that you guys mention the south, and fishing.
I've been in the South since 1989. For a while. I fished for a few years, like everyone else, spring and fall. Occasionally winter, but I found out quick that the hot summers do something to your body, or at least mine. In the winter after fishing for an hour or so, my fingers stop working. One occasion I stayed out too long, air temp in the 30's, wind about 10 kts out of the North, right around Christmas time. Got back to the ramp, couple other boats waiting for me to load. I got in the truck, sat on my hands for a minute and then went to turn the key. I couldn't. My fingers had no strength to do so. Guys were out behind the ramp wonder what I was doing for sure. I had to tell the one guy to get his stuff loaded because I'd be a while. Embarassing.
Honestly, I gave it up for a number of years while I was big time drag racing. I can't have two hobbies. One only took half of a day, just depends on which 12 hours of it you wanted to use. I used the evenings/nights which with a full time career left me with no time for anything else. Well long story short, a guy I work with invited me to ride along with him at the local lake, crappie fishing in the middle of summer. I was like ain't no way we'll catch anything but I guess I'll go. We got there and limited out before dark, about 4 hours we had 80 fish in the basket and cooler. They were right about 19 foot deep over a brush pile in about 25 foot water depth. So deep.
Then in 2011 another friend invited me to go trout fishing in June on a local river. Never been, always heard you had to have expensive fly rods, boats, etc. We took his little flat bottom and 2 ultra light cheap rigs from Wal-Mart. Get there, water temp is about 55 degrees. Actual air temp at the top of the ramp was about 90, but on the water it was maybe 80-ish, and fogged over. Was the neatest thing I'd done in a long time, and we caught fish-all kinds of them and many. It is a federally stocked river and a special place, so I try to go about once a month if I can.
Now that drag racing is a secondary hobby, I have learned to fish for crappie in the summer, learned to fish for trout in the hottest parts of the summer, but in the spring/fall/sometimes winter, it's crappie on a different (shallow tree-filled) lake or saugers at the Arkansas river, and that don't happen often because of the timing-usually February is the best time, which coincides to cold, windy, blustery, cloudy, rainy, nastiest weather to fish in-but that's when they seem to be biting the best. And they're good eating, about like Walleye but they don't get very big. I'm blessed with the trout streams we have here, and blessed to live not an hour from either one of them, and about 15 minutes to one of the cleanest and deepest lakes in the region where crappie are targeted year round, but mostly in the fall and spring when they're shallow. I just happened to do better from May through about October between lake turn overs.
It's funny, I'll pull up to the ramp, throw the minners in the cooler and I'll be the only boat on the water. Come back with 30 crappie in the cooler and if anyone's around, they always ask if anything's biting. Too hot, I'm going home. I been around some good anglers and nary a one ever told the whole truth. Had to figure it out on my own.
I will admit, though, that the older I get the less I want to spend hours out in the heat. That cold water stream is enticing in those hot months. A tiny bit of breeze feels like you're standing in front of an a/c duct. Really relaxing.
Rich, if there are any deeper reservoirs in your area, you might check them out in the summer months for crappie. Deep, over brush, usually near deeper water seems to be the place, at least here anyway on a couple different lakes.
I just HATE it when I have to pull the boat out for the upcoming Winter season. Docks are coming out of the river this upcoming weekend, as too much ice flows to leave them in, and it takes a lot for saltwater tidal rivers to freeze.
