A touch of spring fever

George Richey unhooks an 8-pound Manistee Lake walleye.

A breeze, as soft as an angel's kiss, drifted through the warm air. The temperature hovered around 40 degrees, but it felt like summer.

The ground is still a bit too soggy to sit outside under a tree and luxuriate in the perceived warm of a gentle sun. The sun rays beat down, and instead of sitting, I sprawled out on my deck railing to stare up into the sky.

Today was the my first taste of spring fever, and with it came thoughts of life, death and renewal. The end of a tedious winter, and hopefully the beginning of a new growing season.

Relaxing and thinking grand spring outdoor thoughts.

It felt nice about 2 p.m. to lay back for nearly an hour and do nothing. Sure, I could have been writing my blog or whatever, but I was doing what I most wanted to do -- nothing, but be outside in the sunshine.

Laying back and thinking. Remembering the past, and looking forward to the future. Mixing some good and not-so-good thoughts. Thinking of other days when I would sit on the bank of a steelhead stream in drowsy warmth, and spend an hour watching two steelhead spawn.

I didn't feel like a voyeur; instead, it was as if I were watching the rebirth and renewal of steelhead at that one point in time when fish eggs were fertilized and covered with gravel. In time, those eggs will hatch, and of the multitude of fertilized eggs from one hen steelhead, only a few fish will live long enough to return to recreate their kind.

I was momentarily touched by thoughts of twin brother George, and how he and I enjoyed this special time and place on the Platte River, sharing a wild spectacle of spawning fish, and knowing full well we could be fishing for and catching those fish. However, we also knew that watching the spawning act was more important to the future of this fishery than us catching those fish.

Remembering 63 years of outoor life with twin brother George Richey.

George is always in my thoughts, and even though it is closing in on eight years since his death, I think of him daily. I wish we could have shared today, but I know that we shared many other days when fishing was far less important than us being on the stream.

I heard the brief put-put-put of an early but ardent male ruffed grouse practicing his love song on a drumming log. In the distance came the throaty gobble of a turkey, and a few whiny sounds of a hen turkey complaining about something.

I thought about getting the second-season hunt in this heavily hunted Area K, wondered about the apathetic folks who own land but can't draw an early-season tag. I wonder why more people don't complain to the DNR and ask why private-land tags are available in the U.P. and the southern Lower Peninsula, but not here.

There were fleeting thoughts of trolling for spring brown trout off the piers at Manistee and Frankfort, and the chance -- albeit slight -- of catching a 25-pound brown. Only had one that size hooked, many years ago, and it was lost at the boat. Caught thousands of browns to 18 pounds, but never personally cracked the 20-pound barrier.

There were somewhat pleasant thoughts of upcoming work that must be done to lime and fertilize our food plots this spring, and try to get rid of the grasses and weeds that invariably grow with the clover. That is coming up in the next month or so, and it is a busy back-breaking time.

This year will mean cleaning out some overhead limbs on some food plots to allow more sun to hit the clover. Our crops were new last year, and while they produced, it seemed the weeds came and choked out the other crops. Planting food plots means a major investment in sweat equity, but my neighbor and I believe in helping nature thrive.

Some thoughts about spring fishing and hunting.

Now, if only we could make Mother Nature rain enough so we didn't have to water our plantings. We, along with other farmers, either get too much or too little rain.

My tranquil hour on the deck railing delivered several thoughts on the upcoming turkey season, the upcoming trout and walleye opener in about about six weeks, and then it's fixing up ground blinds and tree stands once again. One or two tree stands may have to be moved.

A sportsman really has little time to kick back and relax, but an early spring day like today is a wonderful time to take a well-deserved break, and think about what we have and how we can make it better.

Thanks for sharing some of my spring fever dreams with me.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors