As most of you know I am on leave from Afghanistan and my current home is in Anchorage Alaska. I was out today walking my blue tick dog Cali and her new little brother Scout when for the first time in the two years that I have been here, I noticed the snow making contour lines. I noticed this because as me and the dogs were running around in ankle deep snow, I fell into a nice little drift. The drift was in between two trails that are slightly shoveled and the wind kind of rips through there, eventually causing the drifts and subsequent contour lines.
John Bales recently wrote a piece for the magazine about the creek and how we can see the changes made by mother nature. He described how, why and what the fish would use if this area was to be a water covered area, lake. When I busted my butt into this drift, I started laughing, my wife from the porch asked what was funny for me? I could only get the words bottom conditions out of my mouth. I was covered in snow, cold, mad and getting frozen by the second. Well after composing myself and kind of looking at the spot, it reminded me of Mr. Bales article. As I am thinking about it I see a few key things:
1. The basic structures that were created here were created in a matter of days with no real forces other than wind and gravity.
2. The situation will be different tomorrow.
3. This spot is really small, about 5 square feet. If this was in a body of water and the only structure there, would I be able to find it?
4. If it was in ten FOW how would I find in? 15' ? 20'+ ?
It was just another time that gets me thinking about the procedures we use, how we employ them, and how we go about fishing the situations from both a daily and seasonal point of view. While the bottom conditions of the lakes we fish will not change as dramatically as the snow did on an hourly or daily basis. The bottom will change, breaks are the factor that will change the most besides weather and water conditions. As Spoonpluggers it would be wise for us to look above the water for clues and signs of change, this may tell us that the underwater world is changing as well.
#3-#4.... what to do?
Josh