Winter Melancholy

The wind is 20 mph outside, a fire in the fireplace, and it is snowing. I was just reviewing the Abu Garcia 6500 C4 reels on ebay feeling itchy to be wetting a line. The deep freeze outside allows me to drift into the winter melancholy that curses us warm water fisherman. I have been thinking about a great fishing trip I went on a few yers ago with the legendary adventurer Rob Walsh of Mayville, NY now residing in Fla. We took his boat out on the Stick Marsh and had a real day of 6-8 lb bass and 8-10 foot alligators. I recall the bait we used were live minnows that were 6 inches long and fished with a bobber. The marsh is full of sticks or in laymans terms, underwater trees! Not a place for rookie enthusiasts as across the surface it appears to be a seemingly simple body of water, but lurking inches below the surface are the blunt ends of sawed trees, leftover from when they created this marsh. That is a great body of water that feels good to think about during this cold snap.