Winter Blues or Cabin Fever: By Any Name, It's a Bummer

Are you feeling mildly depressed, lacking motivation, and suffering from low-energy levels? Those symptoms, according to something I read online, are a sure indication you're suffering from nothing more or less than the common "winter blues." Maybe it's that, or perhaps it's what fishermen refer to as "cabin fever." Whatever "it" is, I know this much: There has to be a boatload of wives who can't wait for "it" to be over.

As proof of that latter statement, I offer this comment by a fellow bass angler I found as I was surfing the Internet yesterday: "I don't know about the rest of you, but I've restocked my crankbaits, worms and frogs; restrung four reels; and spent hours pitching a Senko into a cup across my living room. I'm driving my wife bonkers!"

"So what's a man supposed to do when this kind of weather hits and just hangs around for days on end?" That's the question that kept racing through my head yesterday, as I searched for a way to get rid of the miserable feeling I had. Ultimately, I decided to email some of my fishin' buddies and ask them what they've been doing to while away the hours here lately. The following is a sampling of the responses I received.

Incidentally, a common refrain I heard was, "I've been shoveling snow"--some for hours, others for a couple of days. But there was more, too.

Rob told me he has been spending a fair amount of time putting lures together. During a phone conversation with him yesterday, I learned that he has assembled about 15 spinnerbaits and 10 buzzbaits thus far, with more to come. He plans to make most of them available to Steve at West Neck Marina this spring for sale to customers.

In Jerry's own words, "My recent free time has been consumed with my crawlspace." It seems he noticed some moisture issues under his house at the end of the air-conditioning season and has encapsulated the crawlspace "to hopefully eliminate it 'raining' under my house while I'm out fishing this summer." Jerry continued by saying, "I still have not taken my boat to Bill's Marine for the carb tune-up it needs. In fact, I haven't even bought my new fishing license yet. I want to make sure I can afford to get my outboard repaired before I buy my license."

Meanwhile, Red doesn't see the current local-weather situation as being so bad. There's a good reason for his feeling that way, though. You see, as he explained, "I grew up in Norway, where ice-out usually wasn't until May. And there, at least, we could go ice fishing when cabin fever got bad enough." He concluded by saying that he hopes our ice is gone by May--a point on which I think we all can agree. Personally speaking, I'm hoping it's gone in time for our first scheduled tournament in March, if not sooner.

As I learned from Jim, his No. 1 job the last few days has been "just trying to stay warm"--something I certainly can relate to, as well. He had to get a tech out to check his heat pump. Turned out, though, there wasn't a major problem, and more importantly, "the warranty covered it." Jim went on to note, however, that he also has "been spending a good bit of time on the Web... checking all the news and comments on the upcoming Classic this weekend. I further spent a couple days chasing a guy at a Midwest tackle shop just so I could spend some of my hard-earned cash for a couple of 'sticks'. I caught him yesterday, but not sure I should call that lucky, since I put a dent in the checkbook." And last but not least, Jim has been checking on his kin who live up north. "Got a sense of gratitude," he said, "when my sister told me it was minus-20 degrees Monday morning in northwestern Pennsylvania." He also learned that his son, who works for the resort city, had spent all Tuesday night plowing roads in Virginia Beach.

Besides sending me the story with his byline that I posted yesterday, Charlie has been traveling around Pungo, checking out some of the boat ramps. He found the North Landing at Old Pungo Ferry Road frozen all the way across, as evidenced in the photo that follows. "Never seen that before," he said. "I can imagine what it will look like on Friday after a predicted reading of 8 degrees." The other shot provided by Charlie yesterday shows what the boat ramp at West Landing Marina looked like when he was there.

             The frozen North Landing at
             Old Pungo Ferry Road

One of the boat ramps at West Landing Marina

Since my buddy, Wayne, pulled the plug on his job at the shipyard here recently, he's been mixing a whole lot of "business" with a little bit of "pleasure." By that, I mean he's been making up for a lot of lost time doing things around the house--all designed, of course, to do one thing: Make "mama" happy. For example, I called him one day when he was up to his armpits, cleaning out his fishing room at home. And a couple of other times when I called, he had a hammer in one hand and a paint brush in the other. Then here recently, he went out and got himself a computer--I'm tellin' ya, this fella has become a one-man dynamo. He explained it all to me this way, "I'm doing my honey-do list now, so when March comes, I can fish! fish! fish!" Not long ago, Wayne and some buddies spent a week down in Florida, tossing 3-pounders in the boat so fast they couldn't even count 'em all. And the adrenaline rush from that kind of fishin', coupled with the fact he's now semi-retired, is all it has taken to get him primed and ready for a 2015 season of bassin' like one other I recall. Several years back, Wayne won two bass boats while fishing a circuit from the backseat of other guys' rigs. Wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't pull off the same feat again, given how pumped he is these days. I'm not sure his feet even touch the ground when he walks. I know this: He's fishing a couple of circuits this year, and he's doing it from his own rig this time, so stand by, as Paul Harvey would say, "for the rest of the story."

And now I come to my friend, Skip, who, like Charlie, spends some time traveling around, checking out the water situation, as evidenced by the photo he took from his vehicle the other day while stopped atop the West Neck Creek Bridge--it's the one I used at the beginning of this post. Like Charlie found, there was ice all the way from one side of the creek to the other. But Skip has been doing a lot more, too. "Since someone (I think he means me) mentioned that my tacklebox might be a little large," he said, "I decided to redo my boat and remove useless stuff that I never use (see first photo below). That included tackle I never use or only use on specific lakes, which allowed me to remove that oversized tacklebox." Guess what his next statement to me was. If you say, "It really adds room," you're 100 percent correct. And while still in the cleaning mood, Skip didn't stop there. "Now I'm working on rods and reels (see second photo below)," he said. He's had a little help (in the form of caffeine) along the way, though. Would you believe he estimates he has drunk about 20 pots of coffee? That's a bunch.

            Here's how Skip's revamped
            storage box looks now.

Here, his rods are all spread out on the front deck, ready for cleaning.

Finally, there's yours truly. Most of my time has been spent in front of this computer screen, researching the Internet for any tidbits I can turn into blog posts like the one you've been reading here. Yesterday was a slight exception, in that I had to mix my computer work with keeping watch on my wife, who had come down the night before with some kind of gastro distress. After spending the day resting, she's back at what appears to be full strength again, so once more, I'm glued to this computer screen. I've been here since this morning, other than for the few minutes I spent "ice skating" my way to the curb with the trashcan in tow for the weekly collection tomorrow--or whenever they get here. I couldn't help noticing that I seemed to be the second one to get my can to the curb today, whereas I'm usually one of the last. As I was making my way to the curb and back in the house, the title of an old song sprang to mind: "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Is there anyone out there who can't relate? In my opinion, that pretty well sums up what we have felt today and, if the weather forecasters are right, tomorrow, too. I hardly can wait for the rain to start Saturday and continue all day Sunday, which, together with warmer temps, should send all this snow and ice down the drains, where it belongs.

Whether you want to call it the "winter blues" or "cabin fever," I and a lot of others evidently have it. And while I don't believe for even five minutes this blog post is going to make 'em go away, I'm hoping maybe it'll give you something to smile about for a few minutes... rather than keep pitching Senkos at a cup across the living room for hours on end.