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    Ryan Brod

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    Ice Fishing

    Last Ice: How to Stay Safe and When to Call it Quits

    Ryan Brod

    Mar 26, 2020

    The ice at the lake edge is dark, slushy, and covered in standing water, as if the lake dug a moat around itself. Farther out, where I want to set my tip-ups for pre-spawn northerns, the ice integrity looks uniform and solid. I don’t see any obvious pressure ridges or widening holes that mark danger. On this late March morning the air remains chilly. I’m glad I’ve remembered the 2×4 wooden plank, about 7 feet long, which will act as a bridge...

    Freshwater

    How to Fight and Land Big Fish through the Ice

    Ryan Brod

    Feb 27, 2020

    When I get to the tip-up, the silver spool spins fast enough to raise bubbles in the hole. It slows to a moderate spin, consistent, without stopping. I give a thumbs-up to my dad who trails behind me. He picks up his pace, navigating the lake’s crusty snow cover on his one good knee.
    By all indications, a large northern pike has taken our six-inch golden shiner. Smaller pike, I’ve found, run in short bursts—peeling line from the spool then...

    Ice Fishing

    Ice Advice: Staying Warm During the Coldest Fishing Season

    Ryan Brod

    Feb 13, 2020

    In my earliest fishing photo, I’m two years old, stuffed in a baby blue snowsuit, shoveling Cheez-Its in my mouth on the floor of my dad’s ice shanty.
    Some 30 winters later, I’m thinking of that same photo—of my genuine look of comfort and coziness—as I drill holes through Clearwater Lake, in western Maine, at six in the morning. It’s early February. My nose and cheeks burn in the frigid air. My frosty eyelashes stick briefly with each blink...

    Ice Fishing

    Hardwater Basics: A Guide to Tip-Up Fishing

    Ryan Brod

    Dec 27, 2019

    After augering 10 holes and clearing the slush, we moved on to setting tip-ups. My fingers were already losing function due to the cold, but the adrenaline kept me going. As usual, we were first on the frozen lake, my father and I. The sooner we set up, the sooner our jumbo shiners would swim at depths haunted by big northern pike. To break up down-time between pike bites, we would set a few smaller rigs tipped with tiny emerald shiners for white...

    Ice Fishing

    First Ice: Early Hard-Water Fishing Safety

    Ryan Brod

    Nov 19, 2019

    We stood in the trees near the shoreline, waiting for sunrise. The morning was frigid and windless. A few feet beyond, lake ice folded against land. As far as I could tell, we’d be the season’s first ice anglers; it was early December and a week-long cold snap had hardened my favorite local lake. In a month’s time the lake would be dotted with shanties, alive with the echoes of power augers and snowmobiles, but this morning it was empty and...

    Freshwater

    Muskie Fishing Basics: How to Catch the Premier Freshwater Predator

    Ryan Brod

    Oct 4, 2019

    When it finally happened, I was thinking about lunch: moose stew bubbling over the Coleman stove back at camp or turkey and cheese on a bulkie roll. I’d been casting since dawn, and both choices seemed tempting. Standing at the stern of my canoe, I gazed across the water into Canada. Large, spiky evergreens lined the far shore. The few deciduous trees were beyond peak foliage. When I turned my attention back to the all-black, foot-long streamer...

    Bass

    Savior of the Dog Days: Summertime Topwater Bass

    Ryan Brod

    Aug 27, 2019

    This place is a frog’s nightmare. Bank-eroded trees complicate the shoreline in various stages of decay, providing perfect ambush spots for finned predators. Farther out in this slow-moving river, lily pads bejeweled with yellow flowers contrast deepwater pockets the color of tea. Milfoil and other spindly weeds crowd the channel, which at its deepest reaches only four or five feet. All is peaceful now. I’m hoping to change that. I’m chucking a...

    Wildlife Management

    State of the Bait: Atlantic Menhaden, Lifeblood of the Sea

    Ryan Brod

    Aug 2, 2019

    The Atlantic Coast’s most important fish aren’t stripers, sharks or bluefin tuna. In fact, they’re not gamefish at all. The most important fish on the East Coast are Atlantic menhaden: deep-bellied, silver baitfish of the herring family that grow to 18 inches and school en masse near the surface, feeding on various planktons. Their eyes are large and dull. Black dots crowd their gill plates. Dull spots line iridescent flanks leading to a forked...

    Tarpon

    MeatEater Guide to DIY Tarpon, Part Four: Advanced Tactics

    Ryan Brod

    Jun 25, 2019

    This is the fourth article in a four-part series that explains how to catch Florida tarpon without hiring guides or staying in expensive lodges. In case you missed them, here are part one, part two and part three of the series.
    Tarpon were everywhere but they wouldn’t touch live crabs. Strings of 10 to 20 fish rolled into the tide, slow and lazy. All along a shallow grass flat, singles and doubles laid up beneath the surface—sleeping silver...

    Tarpon

    The MeatEater Guide to DIY Tarpon: Part Three, Battling the Silver King

    Ryan Brod

    Jun 18, 2019

    We’re on our first drift of the evening, my father and I, when I feel a distinct tap at the end of my line. Just as I register what’s about to happen, my line tightens and my float disappears. It’s as though I’ve snagged a bridge piling and we’re drifting slowly away—that’s what it feels like as the tarpon sucks in my crab and turns to continue swimming.
    I set the hook with a hard sweep, low and to my left.
    “There we go!” Dad shouts.
    A huge boil...