WINTER FISHING IN THE SUNSHINE LAND

The geese were still there. The sentinel of the flock was motionless, but electrically alert. I couldn't crawl any closer. I was already 'way out on the finger of land pointing into that lagoon on the Colorado River. There was nothing to do but wait that last day of goose season and hope that if and when the flock moved off that sand bar out there in the river, they might fly over the point of land on which I was hidden.

Idly I looked down into the water. There was an eddy just beyond the point almost under the bank of arroweeds where I lay hidden. And there, below me, I saw a shadowy shape move in the depths. Then I saw others. One rolled up on his side and I saw the lateral dark stripe of the black bass.

A piece of dead twig lay near me. I picked it up and flipped it into the water over the school of bass.

SluuurrrrrupppPP!

One flashed up and sucked it in. He carried the stick down some three or four feet before spitting it out. Another bass swirled in his length and grabbed the floating bit of wood.

"Wow! Fishing water!" I thought.

Even then it struck me as odd. It was really the last day of goose season, and I'd really have felt 'more at home' bundled in woolens, mittens and overshoes and looking across a half-frozen marsh at the geese I was hunting. Instead, I was stretched out on warm sand. The sun was comfortable on my back, and I half wished I'd left my light jacket at the house.

When Bud Fox, my host, heard my woe about the sentinel goose being too smart for me, and of my experience with the bass in the lagoon, he suggested going fishing for them the next day.

And, that was just where we were the next morning. Buddy beached the boat on the sand bar where the geese had rested. We skinned off our shoes and sox and were wading along the shallows. From where I stood I could cast a plug over to the point of land where I had hidden the day before, and reeled the lure through the eddy. The bass were still there and I had a dandy on in the second cast.

So instead of roast wild goose, we had baked Colo-rado River black bass when I got home from that trip.

From then on I was to learn that angling for warm water game fish is a year-around outdoor sport in Arizona. Oddly enough, the very fact that this is a desert state, where rivers are dammed to hold water for irrigation, makes for some of the finest fresh water fishing in the nation. Some of the best of it is had in the fall and very early spring months.

There's a snap to the air then, sure, but, "just right" as the saying goes. It makes you feel like bending that oar and whipping that rod!

Take along the Colorado River-an' I'll start below Boulder Dam because I want to save Lake Mead 'til last -just below the dam is the finest trout fishing in the West. It's open the year long. The limit is ten trout per day or in possession, regardless of weight! And, it's good fishing there, especially in the late fall. This fact was rather forcibly impressed on me one time when I learned that Dutch Flother of Willow Beach (twelve miles below Boulder Dam on the Arizona side of the river) was keeping records of the number of fish coming in to that boat landing he operates.

The most trout were caught during the month of October, according to the records! Fine weather, too!

But, I waited until it was mid-December and when Bob Jackson swung the boat around in the eddy below Cave Rapids, some six or seven miles below Willow Beach, Dutch Derr and I waded out and cast into the fast water. The current carried our salmon egg clusters downstream and as the lines tightened and the bait was caught in the eddy just out of the fast water, there was action, right away!

I heard Dutch yell exultantly above the roar of the rapids. He hung one and a dandy. His rod was up, the golden-hued bamboo quivering in the sun, against the warm blue sky. The straining trout took advantage of the current to force more line from Dutch's reel.

This veteran of trout streams in Pennsylvania, the Appalachians, and Alaska whooped and hollered as this Rainbow from the Southwest's finest trout water did battle. It leaped from the boiling Cave Rapids. It sliced through the eddy. The bright sunlight caught the multi-hued sides of the Rainbow when it swirled near the surface on the blue-green water.

Dutch, finally, slid it, exhausted, out of the water onto the clean, white sand.

We caught trout all the way down to Emery's Landing, and on below some 20 miles. We, Dutch and I, were both from the cold country he from Pennsylvania and I from Minnesota and we talked about how odd and yet how nice it was to be able to set our fly rods in the corner and go duck hunting on the swamps and Driftwood Cove, off Iceberg Canyon, in Lake Mead, is proving to be a fine place to go plugging for the big bass.

sloughs near Topock! Fishing and hunting in the sun! On the way home down in the central part of the state from that trip upriver, we stopped at Parker Dam which holds up Lake Havasu between Arizona and California. The water was smooth and placid there, and Dutch remarked that maybe there was bass fishing there. It wasn't until some years later that we really found out. Dutch had moved away, but late one night I got a call from him. We met the next weekend, the early part of February, at Lake Havasu. Dutch had been right; there were bass there! We had such a grand fishing experience that day: Dutch, his friend, my son David and I, that it worked up into a story, "The Kid Connects," published in the a 'catfish fry'. Someone commented, "That sure is larrupin' eatin'." It was. The following morning we went after bass, that black striped gamester. It was a beautiful day for plugging. The air was warm and quiet. Lee Hoover, Jim Beaman and I stayed out all that day. We fished both banks of the river, from River Lodge down to Tommy Kinder's. There wasn't a pocket, a sunken log, or cove that we didn't explore with plugs. Time after time a swift shadow would dart out from its hiding place to attach itself to the lure we were reeling back through the clear water. Then, to rise and materialize into a slashing, heavy, fighting fish. It was hard to believe as we drifted along, so lazily, June, 1949, issue of Outdoors Magazine. The first warm days of spring, any spring, always make me think of that fishing on the Colorado River near Parker and below Lake Havasu. It was late one night that we were anchored in the 'chanel,' in the stretch of river below Parker Dam. The air was sharp, cool enough to make you warm your hands in your pockets after you got through wetting the paste bait and rolling it into a pliable mass around your hook. There we sat, the current nudging our boat back and forth. Some fifty to seventy yards below us our heavily sinkered baits were tempting channel catfish. And, they yielded. Before three hours we had a catch. The next night we rolled them in cornmeal and had rowing just enough to keep the boat parallel to the bank, that some of the rest of the states were still snowbound and that their fishing was still locked in solid ice. For here we were, in the sun, fishing the quiet backwaters. It was hard to remember, too, that farther south on the lower Colorado River just above Yuma, the sun was even warmer. Down there on Mittry Lake, Martinez Lake and a half dozen other lagoon-like lakes an old time bass fisherman will find fishing water exactly to his liking. Unlike the bass water in the rest of the state where the shoreline is rocky and rather barren but nevertheless productive, the angler finds "story book fishin'" on the lower Colorado. Cattails and tules line the shallows and shoreline. The growth is heavy and waterways become a puzzling maze. You have to have a little experience to know just where to nose your boat into the best fishing because the waterways through the rushes leading to open water are sometimes hidden. There in the lagoons you find what you've spent a lifetime looking for. Beautifully clear water, with submerged brush tops, sunken logs, weed beds all offering cover for warm water game fish.

When you shoot your lure into a narrow opening and drag it past the likely looking hiding place of a bronzebacked lunker you can sometimes see him come out fighting mad, slashing at your plug. Often times he won't be alone. There will be a half dozen racing for the lure.

Tucson to spend the weekend of fishing on the lower Colorado River as their guests. The Yumans furnished the boat, motor, fishing gear and acted as guide, while guests "cast their arm off!"

One Tucsonian, seated in a swivel chair, casting rod in hand, an assortment of bass lures within reach and seemingly endless miles of fishing water going by, sized up the situation in a deathless phrase, "Man, man! I'm King for a Day!"

The Big Fish Derby is climaxed by a fish fry.

That's for freshwater fishing on the Colorado-for not far south, just across the line in Old Mexico you are on salt water, the Gulf of Lower California. Salt water sport fishing is a year around proposition there.

It's thrilling to look down into an avenue of clear water, drop a lure in the middle of it, and see game fish come sliding out from the cover lining the shore.

Jess Fisher of Yuma has developed year around fishing facilities at Martinez Lake. This development is not only for Yuma sportsmen, but for whomever comes that way with fishin' on his mind.

For example, each spring the boys in the Yuma Rod and Gun Club hold a Big Fish Derby. It's the fishermen's activity in the state, with more than $1,500 worth of prizes offered by Yuma merchants. It's open to everyone. The Yuma sportsmen are not only eager to share their fishin', but they encourage competition for the prizes. Last spring they invited bass fishermen from So, it just takes a flip of the coin to make up your mind as to where to go and for which angling sport.

Up in the central part of the state, northwest of Phoenix, there are two lakes on the Agua Fria River that anglers in the know have cross indexed and put back in their minds.

Carl Pleasant Lake and Frog Tanks will be game fish producers next season. The Arizona Game and Fish Commission cleaned out both lakes this past year, destroying all fish, and has restocked them with desirable game fish.

Now, come next spring-!Two other lakes, to be filed away for future fishing plans, are Roosevelt and Coolidge Lakes. Roosevelt, which is closed now to fishing, is on Salt River; and Coolidge, open to fishing, is on the Gila. Both have declined as fishing lakes the past few years because of low waters. But, the snows and rains this past winter and spring have brought them up again. They will be ready for the angler soon.

Ordinarily you'd never associate fishing with deer hunting-but my old friend Cap Durham, a specialist in guiding lovers of outdoor sports, does his deer hunting up on the Verde River around Bartlett and Horseshoe Dams. When he packs up the rifles and hunting gear, his bass rod and game fish lures go along. And he always chuckles about serving freshly caught bass on his annual deer hunting trip.

And why shouldn't a hunter take advantage of yeararound fishing? The Verde River is stocked with both smallmouth and largemouth bass, channel catfish and various panfish. Ol' Cap is just a keen outdoors-loving sportsman enjoying to the fullest the hunting and fishing that is offered him.

Each spring, February 22nd is remembered by AriThey descend on Rocky Point, some sixty miles below the Arizona-Mexico border, on the Gulf of Lower California. It is sea bass, pompano, bonita, sea trout and other species of ocean game fish that are beginning to run up Mexico's west coast line to the Gulf.

Too, that late day in February seems to be almost an official opening day on the lakes up Salt River: Apache, Canyon, and Saguaro. Just why this significance should be attached to February 22nd is beyond my knowledgeunless it is the fact that it's one of the first holidays after the turn of the year and my outdoor loving friends just naturally make plans and take advantage of it. Because certainly they have been fishing in earnest off and on all winter.

Take last winter for example. The Arizona Game and Fish Commission checked the number of bass spawners they had in their rearing ponds, and found they were short the required number. A call was sent out to some of the boys, and as a result one weekend the fellows were angling for spawners to put in the state's bass hatchery. We were all paired off in boats and in one was Wally Blanchard who spends the weekends of Christmas and New Year's at home, the rest on some Arizona lake or stream. Whenever he catches a fish Wally has a unique custom of raising a short bamboo staff to which is attached a flag. It seemed to me it was flying all day long!

And, now we'll come to the end of this piece about fishing for warm water game fish in the winter time in Arizona. I saved this little tale: about Lake Mead and Wally Blanchard until last, because it's the punch line to this yarn.

It was early February. Wally and his fishing compadre, George Tibsherany, were camped up on Lake Mead. Fittingly enough, they were fishing Iceberg Canyon. This very good fishing location on Lake Mead is not so named because it's cold; the formation of its sheer walls of rock gives it the chilly monicker.

Wally and George had a fire going late one night, when a fisherman staggered into their camp. Of course he was welcomed with hot coffee, because unfortunately he'd lost his boat and equipment through an accident.

It turned out the fellow was camped up the lake a little way and Wally ferried him back.

On the way the unfortunate told Wally about the fishing he'd been having, and commented about the accident, which strangely enough didn't matter to him. He made the statement that if he never caught another fish as long as he lived, the last week, before he'd lost his outfit would do him the rest of his life. Wally asked him where this good fishing was to be had.

Although Wally Blanchard probably fishes Arizona's waters and especially Lake Mead more than any one other individual he had never nosed his boat into Driftwood Cove in Iceberg Canyon.

But the next day he was there. Now it is a matter of history-Wally and George both caught bass weighing over ten pounds apiece. Wally's was slightly the heavier, having an additional ten ounces. This Lake Mead bass has since placed in the Field and Stream's National Big Fish Contest. It took all honors in the Big Bass Derbies in Arizona. All of which just goes to prove what you can do with a rod and a plug here in Arizona during the winter time!