Time to quit fishing? Not yet

Roger told me he's already put his fishing rods away for the year. He's also cleaned out his tackle box and is now going to do some maintenance work on his spinning and casting reels.

I didn't pull any punches when I told him I believed he was nuts. In fact, I suggested he head for some of the pond s where we fished this year and do some late-season exploratory work.

What usually happens at this time of the year is many anglers take all their gear apart and store everything until next year's soft-water season.

And then they moan and groan throughout the winter.

Because I am unable to get out and do any fishing now, I try living vicariously through some friends and get my kicks from their exploits.

But when I hear guys like Roger and several others have already hung it up, I start to bristle and wonder if they're thinking straight. These are the same people who annually champ at their collective bits when there's a foot of ice on area lakes and the temperature hovers around the zero mark.

Two years ago I experimented with some lures in the fall. I am a topwater nut and I visited some forest preserve ponds where I knew there was some decent weed growth as well as tree-stump stickups.

Even though the weedlines were starting to recede and decay, the warm weather we experienced at this same time two years ago helped slow the die-off.

I had a small Plano tackle box that I stuffed with surface buzz baits, a Zara Spook, one Baby Spook, a Chug Bug and a weedless frog.

I rigged a light casting rod and reel with 10-pound mono, and proceeded to look for open pockets in the weed growth. I failed to interest anything in the neighborhood until I went to an 1/8-ounce buzz bait.

I tossed the lure in between two deadfall stickups and slowly worked it back to me. Too bad I didn't have someone recording video at that moment. A chunky largemouth bass came up behind the buzz bait and grabbed it. It was hiding in the root section of the stump and was probably ready to ambush any possible meal coming its way.

I took that action as a sign that just maybe the bass in this particular pond were actively feeding. My hunch paid off because I repeated the cast to a close-by stump and this time two large bass came racing out from beneath their cover. The heavier of the pair caught up to the buzzer, grabbed it, and headed back to its woody condo. That fish went a tad under 4 pounds.

After releasing the fish I then walked to another area on that same pond and this time I switched to the surface popper. Whether it's fly fishing or bait casting, punching the surface with topwater lures is my favorite approach. Just watching a fish come to the surface is a true joy. Anyway, I made a half-dozen casts to another group of dead stumps, and on my last cast and retrieve the water exploded as if a stick of dynamite went off.

This time 4½ pounds of bass ran me around the stumps for almost eight minutes. I scaled the fish, released it and then measured the water temperature. My thermometer read 48 degrees. Now that's pretty chilly in anyone's book, but the bass were continuing to be active and chase lures.

Based on that experience and several other similar experiments, I am convinced there is plenty of good bassing time left for you to enjoy.

I only suggest you don't say anything to Roger if you happen to take some big fish. He'll probably complain that he'll have to re-assemble his gear, and that in itself is a major project.

Ÿ Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, and catch his radio show 6-7 a.m. Sundays on WSBC 1240-AM or streaming at www.mikejacksonoutdoors.com.