Fishing

When I was a kid, my dream was to become a professional bass fisherman. Every Saturday morning, while other kids were wasting their time with cartoons, I was up early watching the tournaments on ESPN. The pros in those competitions, standing on the podium or in the back of their glitter-finish speed...

We caught a big catfish and my buddy Ryan taught us how to skin it right at the boat ramp. These flatheads are renowned for their belly meat. This is a big one, but you can use this basic method with almost any size of catfish. This works best if you have a standard fillet knife and an electric...

It’s that time of year when many people who don’t normally go fishing find themselves on a beach or boat and, often by no fault of their own, end up with a fish in their hands. These folks can to some degree be excused for improper handling. The rest of you should know better. It's important tto...

The only factor limiting the number of crankbait colors available to crass-consumerist bass anglers is the amount and variety of paints on Earth. The pandemic may have caused supply chain shortages, limiting us to the basic color choices, but that doesn’t bother East Texas pro Keith Combs. “I...

The heart is more often a metaphor than an organ in common speech. You might hear an angler say such things as “South Dakota is the heart of walleye culture” or “I love catching and eating walleyes with all of my heart.” Todd Thesenvitz, an airline maintenance technician from Clark, South Dakota...

I’ve been fortunate enough to spend more than my fair share of time with fishing outfitters and guides at camps, lodges, and destinations around the world. But, once I'm there, many times I've felt trapped with people I’ve never met before, with whom I have little in common except our choices of...

Even people who know nothing about fishing know that worms will catch fish. It’s as cliché as it gets in our sport, so let’s just go ahead and move past it: Open a can of worms and you can expect to catch a fish in the freshwater environs of North America, be it trout, bass, walleye, bluegill...

You might be skeptical about this title. Hell, I would be too, but hear me out. The greatest North American sportfish you’ve never heard of? The inconnu. No need to “bless me,” that wasn’t a sneeze. Inconnu, defined by Merriam-Webster as an “unknown person or thing,” is also the common name given to...

A common theory exists that we only use 10% of our brain capacity. The same could probably be said of our smartphones, computers, and sonar units—most people only scratch the surface of the abilities these pieces of technology possess. But a little bit of education goes a long way. Just because you...

In 2008, I fished as a co-angler in the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament on Falcon Lake on the Texas-Mexico border. You know it’s an epic event when midway through the first day’s weigh-in, the tournament director makes an announcement that you shouldn’t bother entering a largemouth for the big...

I’m generally an unrepentant tackle buyer, but here’s an anecdote that makes me less than proud. A year ago, I put a “tickler” on an online merchant’s site that would alert me when a rare Japanese glide bait came back into stock. One day I got the email alert and was forced to act quickly, because I...