Hoopengarner on Outdoors
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February's good time to take stock
February may be the shortest month of the year, but it can seem like an eternity to die-hard anglers and hunters.
With the major hunting seasons over and most fishing opportunities still a long cast away, February offers 28 contemplative days.
Nevertheless, there's no reason to sit around and mope.
Many sportsmen use this in-between time to catch up on the many mundane but necessary tasks to be prepared when the action resumes. And you might just find they can be fun and rewarding.
For example, when was the last time you thoroughly inspected all the gear in your fly-fishing vest or tackle box.
Just the other day, I unpinned and dumped the contents of my fly vest on a table to clean and inspect everything and discovered several tools and zingers were missing or in shoddy shape. My flyline, I noticed, had also seen better days.
So, I got out a note pad and made a list of things I'll need before the March 1 eastside early lake opener rolls around.
John Westland, at the Clearwater Fly Shop in Kennewick, said that while they're at it, anglers might as well clean and oil their reels, check and clean their rod guides, replace leaders and tippet material, inspect fly boxes and give their waders and boots a once over.
"I like to use this downtime to look through my fly boxes and see which flies I've used up the most and make a note to tie up replacements or buy the materials I'll need to tie more," he said.
Rummaging through my fishing vest serves another purpose besides identifying all the tools I lost clambering through the brush to reach that secret fishing spot and removing a melted Snickers bar from the back pouch.
The last thing I do is don the vest and reattach each item exactly where I can easily reach it - line clippers and forceps on the upper right side, leader straightener and hook sharpener on the left, extra tippet materials in the right front pocket, fly holder attached to the top left pocket, and so on.
When the fish are rising, the last thing you want to be doing is standing hip deep in the water frisking yourself.
Because I'm a nut for bass fishing, too, a foul February day makes a great excuse to plow into my bass boxes.
Sharpening all those hooks on the myriad plugs, spinner baits and leadheads that crowd my tackle box like sardines takes a considerable amount of time.
But every lure has a story, and just handling them usually kindles a fond recollection, except for a certain Shad Rap I recall burying in my thumb last fall.
Besides your plugs and jigs, it's a good idea to give your spinning or baitcasting reels a going over, cleaning and oiling critical gears and moving parts. I also remove all the old line from my reels and loosen the drag systems until I replace the line.
February, says Frank Sergeant at Critter's Outdoor World in Pasco, also is a good time to peruse the voluminous number of catalogs that flood your mailbox for new gear (like I need another sure-fire fish-catching lure) and to visit your favorite outdoor stores.
Sergeant says most shops have the time now to show off the latest tackle or demonstrate new knots and fishing techniques.
If tackling all the minutiae associated with preparing for trout and bass fishing weren't enough to keep me busy, I recently added spring turkey hunting to the list.
And as every fledgling longbeard hunter knows, there is never enough time to go over all the particulars of turkey hunting.
Lately, I've been getting some strange looks from my neighbors after spending several hours in the garage practicing my clucks, yelps and purrs on my slate friction call - which I'll admit at times sounds like roomful of kids scraping their fingernails on a blackboard. Wait until they get an earful of the new owl hooter I just bought.
Beside raising the hackles of your neighbors, turkey hunters also can spend time pouring over Metsker's county maps, telephoning, writing or visiting prospective landowners or touching bases with property owners who were kind enough to let you hunt on their land last season.
And, if you can't actually get outdoors, hunting and fishing videos can be a foil for February.
If you're still pacing the floor, desperate for a way to snap the cabin-fever blues, there's always Jesse Ventura and the XFL.
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