Spring has sprung
Phil Taunton
Friday, March 23, 2007
An unknown author once wrote, “Everyone ought to believe in something. I believe I’ll go fishing.”
I think there is much reason in his saying. If only I could!
I will be judging a NSTRA pointing dog field trial this weekend near Valley Falls. Still running dogs in March? Sure, and the dogs love me for it. Boy, there is so much for an outdoors person to do.
Aren’t the flowering shrubs and bushes magnificent? Nanking cherry are blooming now, their branches covered with clusters of white flowers. I call it my popcorn bush.
The blooms will turn into a tart-red cherry that the fruit-loving birds really cherish. They will make short work of them once the fruit develops.
The tulip magnolias are blooming and the Bradford Pears, known as the kaleidoscope of trees — white blooms in the spring, emerald green leaves in the summer that turn scarlet red in the fall — will soon follow in all their glory.
A true believer in sign and folklore, I planted my potatoes and early peas in the garden on St. Patrick’s Day. Just yesterday I saw several spears of asparagus emerging in their beds.
Purple martins should be arriving any day now. Have your houses cleaned out and be ready for the war against starlings and house sparrows
Spring has sprung, and what a sight it is to behold!
As promised, I went fishing for walleye at Council Grove City Lake last Saturday during the late afternoon. And just as I predicted, the fish were spawning right at our feet in the crystal clear water.
Fish after fish swam by. You could see them splashing and rolling in the shallows along the dam.
Cast after cast was ignored! We threw everything out to them but the kitchen sink — jigs, stick baits, even minnows under a bobber.
A.K. Best said it best when he claimed, “The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad.”
Have you heard they were catching two- and three-pound crappie at Melvern? I haven’t either, but if you do, be sure and let me know by e-mailing me at ptaunton@cableone.net.
The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks rates Toronto Reservoir in southeast Kansas as being the power index top-rated crappie lake this year. Hillsdale, Clinton and Perry also should be good producers, with each having good density of keeper fish.
Have a good weekend and let me know of your angling success. The Tackle Box on South Commercial reports that several nice crappie have been caught along with big bass in farm ponds.
Rewards offered
for return of tags
Crappie fishing soon will pick up across Kansas as the water warms and crappie prepare for their annual spawn. April through June is the time when more anglers fish and more crappie are caught than any other period during the year. Some of these crappie sport special tags that provide important harvest information for fisheries biologists.
From 2003-05, Kansas Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) biologists tagged crappie in Cedar Bluff, Clinton, Hillsdale, Melvern and Perry reservoirs. Tags in 2003 were blue and tags in 2004 and 2005 were yellow.
When returned to KDWP, these tags are worth $5, $20 or $100. Anglers who catch tagged crappie are requested to return the tags with a completed short survey card about the fish they caught. These cards are available at local KDWP park offices and area bait shops and must be returned to the Emporia Research Office to be eligible for the rewards.
To date, only about 30 percent of the tags have been returned.
Anglers who have tags from past years are encouraged to return those tags, so KDWP staff can get a better picture of how many crappie have been caught.
For tags caught in 2003-06, exact dates of catch are not necessary if the month and year of catch are known. The most important information is the tag return.