Well here in central Virginia winter is losing it's grip, albeit slowly. On March 20 I picked up a 2.5 lb bass 10' deep in 17' of water (not on a fly rod). Surface water temperatures were running around 40 degrees. In my experience, fishing starts getting interesting when the surface temperature hit 46 degrees. After that the weather turned cold and rainy and I couldn't buy a strike. The lake behind the house froze over again then melted and last Mondays 10-12 inches of snow and near single digit night time temps froze the lake for the third time this winter. Many winters it doesn't even get a skim of ice.

Yesterday our temperature rose to 70 degrees briefly and it was windy. Today it's supposed to be mid 70s and light wind and tomorrow the temperature is supposed to hit 80. I've got company coming over for lunch and I plan to fish this afternoon when they leave. I've seen fry in the shallows and the turtles are sunning themselves. These are good signs and I'm guessing I'll find the crappie starting to feed and in a week or so the bluegills will be thinking about breaking their winter fast.

It may just be faith but I really think winter is losing it's grip here in central Virginia.

Now for a question - I just started working at Southside Community college at their Ft. Pickett location. I've heard great things about the ponds and lake on base. Has anyone fished them? Also curious about fly fishing Briary Creek Lake about an hour away. I keep hearing stories about limit catches of bluegills that average around a pound. Just typing the words gets my adrenaline up - I can't imagine dozens of one pound bluegills on a fly rod in a single trip.

Greybeard