Outdoor living

Stay inside during February, usually Missouri's coldest month, and you'll avoid the potential for frostbite, pneumonia, ear infections and other maladies. Trouble is, you might miss one of the good months for crappie fishing.

In looking over the heated-dock status, I noticed that the enclosed docks have finally won their place in fishing society and much of this is because of the many retired persons who have found this way to fish in the winter.

They fish often. They fish for the fun it offers them. It reacquaints them with the outdoors they knew and loved in their younger years.

These enclosed or heated docks have opened doors to active fishing when the snow lays on the ground and the home walls start closing in.

Tom Williams, a retired businessman from Kansas City who moved to Warsaw, has learned that these docks in the winter is a spot where you do more than catch fish.

Williams said, "You become acquainted with people from all areas of Missouri, or other states. You learn some tricks of dock fishing and you also learn about cousin whoever's health problems, the new grandchild or many other things, both good and bad. You become part of a family that is also interested in what you do, what you have done and where you have fished."

Often, on a dock fishing trip, you relive the many trips made by all the other persons fishing there. You follow along, in your mind's eye, to Table Rock, to Grand lake and other enclosed docks. You listen and you learn.

One thing that might surprise you is finding out how many good bass fishermen also fish for crappie. I know of bass anglers who, a few years ago, wouldn't want to waste time talking about crappie. If you mentioned a heated dock, they looked at you as if you had insulted them. Today they fish right beside you. They still prefer bass, prefer the boat and the long casts, but they have found that, if you can't travel to states where warm weather refuses to leave, you can keep up on your fishing, can keep the muscles working, can work on the touch of a fish taking small nips at your bait.

Trout fishermen have told me they like to visit heated docks prior to the March 1 opener in the trout parks. They say it keeps them alert to the feel of a fish coming in contact with a lure being offered. They see the closeness between the pounce of a trout upon a lure, and the quick grab of a crappie for the lure offered.

Years ago, there was a dock on Bull Shoals in the Lead Hill area where the fishing and catching was good when the weather was cold and the wind was howling outside. Many white bass, walleye and largemouths were hauled in along with the crappie. Unfortunately that dock is no longer in operation.

Even today many anglers hide the fact they fished the docks, but fishermen like Williams don't.

He said, "I never pretended to be the great fisherman that others thought they were. Big fishermen didn't want to say they liked to sit down and, in cold months, fish in comfort. Imagine a big-named fisherman sitting in a rocking chair, in shirt sleeves, swapping tales with some unknown who just started fishing this past year."

Enclosed docks are not the place where you can show your casting skills. They are just a place where you drop your line down into the concealed brush and wait, alert for the movement of the rod tip. This is the place where you hope your minnow isn't too large, too small or too dull to coax a big crappie to hit. This is a place where you use small jigs of different colors and mumble strange things under your breath when you find yourself in brush that won't give an inch.

This is the place where, if you get a big one, some other fisherman will start telling you about the time he fished in the same spot, same depth, same lure and caught one much larger that the one you just landed. Often a lot of those anglers are happy as can be if you lose the big one. They feel they'll catch him soon and then show you how it's done.

Fishermen often wish you luck, but only after they have had a lot of it themselves.

Several lakes around the state have enclosed docks for winter fishing including Stockton, Pomme de Terre and the Lake of the Ozarks primarily for crappie and catches can be very good for those who fish jigs and minnows around the sunken brushpiles.

For years, area crappie fishermen have caught fish from the docks at the Lake of the Ozarks or Grand lake.

Many times the crappie aren't as large as you might like, but the action will help bring spring closer.

This is the time to get some big, fat and fast crappie. Fish inside, or outside the docks, but don't let winter keep you away from fishing.