I had planned a multi-day fishing trip for early April. It would have involved about a half-day of travel, then a couple of days on the water with an old angling friend and colleague whom I don’t see as often as I would like. While sorting through piles of gear that included waders, a float tube, two generic “fishing bags” and more rods than I could possibly need, my wife walked into my office carrying a cup of coffee and a slice of fresh-from-the-oven chocolate cake. She hoisted a bag from the couch, tossed it on the floor and sat down.
“Want some cake and coffee?”
I shook my head. “No, thanks. Not yet.” I was thinking where I might have put a small box of recently tied Clouser minnows and was trying to decide if I might really need the float tube. I probably wouldn’t need the tube. The fly box might be in the Filson bag.
“Is it in the Filson bag?” Katy asked, reading my mind.
“You know … It might be.”
With a practiced eye, Katy surveyed the cluttered room, which had once been a one-vehicle open carport and has a too-much-stuff-for-the-space feel about it. Katy is well familiar with my chaotic pre-trip packing routine. We’ve been married more than four decades.
She forked a bite of cake.
“Did you see the weather forecast?”
Katy is the weather authority in our home, a by-product, I’ve long suspected, of her being the daughter of a farmer. My father-in-law seemed to always have one eye on the sky and could read the weather like I can read a newspaper. At last count, she had six weather apps installed on her phone and is seemingly on a first-name basis with our local TV weather prognosticators.
My idea of checking the weather is looking out the window, which currently revealed clouds and a stiff, warm breeze from the south. The cloud cover might help, but I was hoping the wind would calm. I was still thinking about the fly box, which I’d now decided was not in the Filson bag but in a drawer of an old hutch that had once filled a corner of my mother’s kitchen but is now packed with fishing gear, camping supplies and a rarely used fly-tying vise and sits in a corner of the former carport, a form of recycling with a practical purpose.
“No, not yet,” I said, noting the weather question. I was rifling through the hutch drawer, which—to my surprise—held an old Martin fly reel that I thought my daughter Sarah had but not the box of Clousers.
“What’d they say? The weather people, I mean.”
“Storms tonight, then 10 to 15 inches of rain over the next few days. Would you like for me to look in the Filson bag for the Clouser box?”
I shook my head, having decided the Clouser box was in the pouch of my fly vest. “It’s not in the Filson bag. I know where it is. I think I’ll have some cake.”
I retreated to the kitchen and returned with a chunk of cake and a glass of milk, tossed another bag off the couch and sat down.
“How much rain? Ten or 15 inches? Not possible.”
“I hope not. But that’s what they’re saying.”
About halfway through my cake and milk, my phone dinged. It was a text from Alan, my fishing partner.
“Seen the forecast? Big rain!! Maybe we should reschedule.”
Katy forked her last bite of her cake. “Who is it?”
“Alan. He thinks we should reschedule.”
She was looking at one of the numerous weather apps on her phone. “Might be a good idea.”
While I was typing a response, Katy reached into her pocket and handed me the Clouser box.
“I found this.”
“Where?”
“In the Filson bag. I looked while you were in the kitchen.”
Closures and Transfers
The 2,506-acre Ashland Wildlife Management Area in northern Lee County is permanently closed.
The closure stemmed from a property sale, a condition that was included in the 2005 agreement between the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources and the property owner, Ashland Inc. Following the sale of the land, the agreement establishing a WMA was terminated.
According to a KDFWR news release announcing the management area’s closure, under most WMA agreements, landowners retain ownership while allowing public access for hunting, fishing and wildlife watching, while the state game agency provides property management guidance, enforcement and other services in coordination with the landowner.
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In another public land switch, the section of McCracken County’s West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area known as Tract 1 has been closed to public access. The closure removed about 655 acres of the WMA from public use. The remaining 5,760 acres of the Western Kentucky property remain open.
The property closure is part of an economic development project that was announced late last year by Gov. Andy Beshear.
In agreeing to give up part of the West Kentucky WMA, the fish and wildlife commission agreed to exchange the Tract 1 property for 1,068 acres in Fulton County. This property is being managed as part of the Obion Creek WMA and is open under statewide regulations.
Readers may contact Gary Garth at editor@kentuckymonthly.com