Busy week, but no fishing yet

I've been negligent about posting anything the past week or so, but I have to plead that things have been hectic. My daughter's car was in the shop for several days and trying to juggle cars to get everyone where they needed to be and not miss opportunities to work just left me tired at night.
But, all excuses aside, I have heard the crappie are hitting at Buckeye Lake. Some saugeye and cats are also hitting there. Rush Creek at ast report was still a foot or so high and muddy and not producing much. Dillon Saturday night was still more than 9 feet above winter pool, but dropping fast. Delaware was also dropping fast, down to less then five feet over winter pool Saturday night.
I couldn't have made it oout anyway, as I didn't buy my fishing license until Friday! I also had to replace the prop on my trolling motor -- I had worm more than an inch of each end of the blades. When I took the old prop off, the drive pin was bent and wouldn't come out. After fighting with it several times, I finally got it out this afternoon and put the new prop on. I should make a big difference.
I did make it to the Wildlife open house in Athens March 5. There weren't any big new rules undewr consideration, but it's always good to talk to the people there and my conversations with Mike Greenlee, Tim Parrett, Mike Tonkovich and Jim Hill might be productive in the future.
I also had an interesting conversation this week with a representative of the Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Commission. That group is doing a lot to help correct the problems at the lake that produced the toxic algae blooms there the past two years. Watch upcoming issues of the Ohio Outdoor News for the story.
I also made it up to Knox Marine for the annual soring sports show there. I attended one of the talks given by bass pro Larry Nixon. He didn't ay anything revolutionary about how to catch more bass,but he did have some good advice for tournament anglers, especially to understand that sometimes all the analyisis of what the bass should be doing won't produce any fish and you just need to "go fishin.'"
That's easy to say but hard to remember sometimes.
I did buy some new tube jig heads that I'm anxious to try out. I'll let you know how they work.
IO also picked up information on several open tournaments and circuits (to go with a few that I already had) that I'll share in a separate post.
If you have any early-season fishing sucess you want to share, send me an e-mail at the address listed in the header of tbhis page.