Today, we can all say that winter is officially in the rearview mirror. As for the spring that we welcome in, much has been said, one of which is that, according to Alfred Lord Tennyson, it’s a time when “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”
Well, how young a man needs to be to love or whether that love need always be directed at a someone rather than a something are other matters entirely. I’m sure there are several local enthusiasts readying themselves for a resumption of an avocation to which they have professed their love, fishing.
However, for the most passionate anglers, fishing isn’t just a fair-weather pursuit, and one such individual who has fished many a day this past winter is Steve Contini.
Recently, I caught up with Steve to talk about winter fishing. The last time I checked in with him, it was to gather information for a feature I wrote on him and son Sebastian’s shared passion for the sport for last Father’s Day. When it comes to winter fishing, Steve recalls what the season once meant to him as a young man and what it means to him now that he’s working his way through his 60th year.
“Back in my LCC days, my football coach Dave Coulter, who really loved hunting and fishing, wanted to ice fish, so off we went to the lake at Hawthorne Hills. I remember besides poles and bait, we didn’t have much else except a pretty dull auger to make our hole and a couple buckets we upturned for seats. To be honest, I can’t really even remember if we caught anything.”
Steve, who told me he’d left his ice-fishing days behind many years ago, has taken note of how different ice fishing is today.
“There are some really nice ice shanties with heaters. Electric and gas-powered augers now are used to drill holes through the four inches of ice that’s the minimum for anyone wishing to do anything on ice and sophisticated fish finders. Ice fishing really has come a long way since my early experiences.”
Whenever ice wasn’t covering the local reservoirs, Steve’s open-water efforts numbered four or five times a week this winter, and the results have filled his freezer with his catch, mostly perch. That’s made for some mighty tasty Fridays during this Lenten season for the T-Bird 1979 graduate.
When asked to assess the opportunities the Lima area provides for those inclined to get their fishing license and grab a pole and some bait, Steve was effusive in his praise of the area’s venues.
“Really, people around here who love to fish are so fortunate. Our local reservoirs are excellent, and both Indian Lake and Grand Lake are also less than an hour away.”
When it comes to how winter fishing differs from other times of the year, besides the obvious need to bundle up, Steve feels it takes a different approach to be successful.
“Remember that fish are coldblooded, so when it gets colder, they really slow down. The warmer the water, the more active they are, which is why a lot of fresh-water fish in the southern states grow bigger because of the longer growing season.
“Now, in our colder temperatures, what that means for me is I need to use a slower bait presentation during the winter and also for the beginning of spring. Really, everything in the fish’s world slows down in colder temperatures, so a fast-moving bait wouldn’t look natural. I’ll leave the bait suspended in the water a lot longer and then really slow my rod down as I move the bait through the water instead of using quick jigs.”
As for getting that catch, no matter the weather, to the dining table, Steve has two recommendations when filleting the catch.
“Keep your knife sharp and slow down.”
So, for the man once known for his hard hits on the gridiron back in his T-Bird football days, spring just means a continuation of what he does every other month of the year. And, with his passion comes the expectation that he’ll be lining up a dozen or more beautiful perch on the grass to take a quick cellphone snapshot. Of course, as even a non-fisherman like me knows, since cameras have existed, nary an angler has passed on taking a photo of what his rod has wrought.
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