Fishing season is finished ... or is it?

EXTRA! EXTRA! FISHING SEASON HAS BEEN CALLED ON ACCOUNT OF ICE!!

Well as the first line says my fishing for this year is most likely finished. I live in northern Illinois and most of my ponds have a nice thin sheet of ice on them. Unless we get some strange warm front that gets rid of the ice and makes it comfortable for me to be out fishing I will not be making any more trips out this year. I am not one of those guys that likes to freeze sitting on ice trying to catch fish so my winters are spent staying warm and doing other things. So how does this fisherman pass the time? I do all my tackle maintenance, research, playing mad scientist, play video games, and snowboard. For those following along, I am sure video games and snowboarding are not what you are here to hear me talk about. So lets get into the fishing stuff I do over the cold months...

Tackle maintenance

I begin every season, maintaining my rods and reels. I wash up the rods and make sure there is no problems with the eyes or blank. I clean the reels and oil them up as needed. The third step is, to strip the old line off my reels and I may keep 1-2 rods just in case the rivers ice out. Then I leave them that way until spring, and every spring I buy new line to spool them all back up. One trick to help save money during this process is to use reel backing. There are a few options you can do for this one. 1) leave some of the old line on there. 2) put some mono or braid as the backing line. 3) good old fashioned electrical tape works too. By using backing, that will fill the spool part way so that you won't have to fill each spool with as much line. One 200 yd spool of line would get me a reel and a small amount left over, not enough to fill a second reel. Now, I put about 100 yds on one reel and 100 yds on another so I get 2 reel fills off one spool. Less money spent to do this hobby that costs so much at times. Any left over half spools, can be used later in the season if 1 of your reels starts getting low on line. To join the new line to one of the line backing options, I use a uni to uni knot.

Next step is to go through my boxes of baits and check every hard bait. How are the hooks, split rings, paint, spinnerbait wires and blades, crankbait and jerkbait bills. If the hooks or split rings are rusty they automatically get swapped out. The LAST thing I want is a rusty bait ruining a box of lures or a rusty hook loosing that fish I need for a tournament. If the hooks are dull I may just use a hook file or swap them out.
Evaluate the paint jobs on you lures, if I have a crankbait or jerkbait that is missing a little paint, I may or may not choose to retire it. Crankbait and jerkbait bills can get a light filing to remove any minor blemishes but make sure you file the bill evenly. **NOTE: If you file the bill, make sure you test the bait because it may not run true.** Spinnerbaits and Jigs can be repainted with a fresh coat of powder paint to make them look like new.

The last step I do in this process is to take inventory. What baits/colors do I need more of? What hooks, weights, and other terminal tackle am I low on? This helps me make a minimal shopping list and gives me direction when I head to the store of 'what I need' vs. 'what I want' so I don't overspend. As said before, I love trying new baits, to compare them to my go to baits but I make sure to limit my spending and choices on those baits.

Research

An underrated and underused, but highly effective and efficient part of fishing. Having the internet readily available at our fingertips, information is easier and faster to find. The internet can provide informative blogs (like this one), articles, forums, and videos to help you learn new techniques and cut the learning curve down dramatically. I use the internet, fishing magazines, and TV shows to learn techniques. I also use this time to research tournament results from lakes in the area. Understanding the date, location, structure/presentation, and lure selection -- helps me to figure out seasonal patterns and begin to formulate my own plans of attack. I am then able to make a lake box for tournament given the seasonal pattern information. Sure my boater may choose to fish a pattern that I don't have in my lake box at the given time, but it happens occasionally and my goal is to make the best of what I have with me (I always have my 'Panic Box' right?). Hopefully, if your boater did their research, your pattern and lure selection should be similar to his/hers. I study maps and look for areas that fit the seasonal patterns just to have as a reference. As a non-boater, the maps are not as critical for me as if I were a boater.

Mad scientist work

I also use this time to try new ways of customizing baits or making new baits. Customizing jig skirts, adding colors to lures, modifying soft plastics, or working on figuring out new rigging techniques. I would rather tear up a few soft plastics now to tear up a lot more later when bass are destroying them from a new rig that I figured out.