Fishing season is finally here. The die-hards have been hitting the water for the last several weeks, but now even a lot of the higher country is free of ice. Be careful, though, because the really high country is still covered with several feet of snow. In some places, the snowpack is well into the double-digits.
If your favorite fishing spot is one of the places still sitting under a blanket of white, now’s a great time to find a new one. Pack up the camping gear and grab a handful of topos, and then go exploring.
There’s plenty to do this time of year, even if you don’t want to go fishing. You can just go for a hike, or maybe dust off your GPS receiver and log on to geocaching.com. Plug in the coordinates to a few geocaches in your area and have some fun while you’re working on your orienteering skills. If you’re looking for a little more of a challenge, you can log onto letterboxing.org, which is similar to geocaching, but most of the directions to letterboxes are written in a way that makes you use a map and compass, rather than a GPS receiver.
If you have a boat or JetSki or know somebody who does, maybe just spend some time bobbing around on the reservoirs. The water’s still a little cold for waterskiing or JetSkiing, but if you’re adventurous enough, you could give it a shot.
And of course, if you just can’t bear to go outside without a firearm in your hands, you can always head to the shooting range. This is a good time to practice your shooting, so when the hunting seasons roll around, you’ll be able to hit what you want to. Or maybe track down a landowner with a hefty population of prairie dogs on his place and spend a day or two thinning the little buggers out.
There’s no shortage of things to do these days – it’s only limited by the amount of time you have to get outside.
