Finally, I make it home to the family. My children have missed me most of the summer. It is a part of my job that I really don’t like. We spent a day having fun. The kids and I went to the Wickliffe Indian Burial Mounds State Park. We learned about Indian culture and how they lived. Max and Caroline were shocked to see ancient fish hooks. Caroline said, “Daddy there is no way the Indians had fish hooks! They look like some of yours.” I replied, “The Indians did make their own hooks. They were made out of bone.” The other feats of engineering were amazing too. Pottery, arrowheads, and drills took us back to those days. Max topped it all off with a perfect statement from a six year old, “Daddy, can we go back to the air condition now?” So we packed up and headed to Ya Ya’s Island. It is an indoor playhouse with club houses, blow-up slides, and tons of fun things for the kids to do.

It was 3 a.m. and I was tying up a batch of #6 Red Winged Polyfluffers. I was in a hurry because in just 5.762 hours I'd be in the middle of the largest Red-Winged Polyfluffer hatch anyone had ever seen. The problem was that every time I wanted to whip finish my fly, I had to pick up the whip finish tool. Now, I've never learned the hand-whip, so I need the tool - but the extra time spent picking it up and putting it down was a drag. Who has an extra 2.34 seconds out of each hour these days? Not me.

Sometimes, things just don't go your way. It happens to everyone and there's often little we can do about it other than try to adjust our plans and our attitudes. Take my friend Hal for example...

This was a 21 day road trip. It has been so intense that my wife reminded me that I was only home three days in the month of June. I worked hard, gambled on decisions, and ended up with the Bassmaster Classic in view! I had a successful turn of events and I am proud of the outcome.

The electronics that are on an angler’s boat today may look like a big screen TV when passing by boaters look at your fishing rig.  Some may even say that today’s electronics is like playing a video game with the amount of detail and information they relay back to an angler.

 Actually, crossing the Canadian border is a very simple process and well worth the effort to experience true wilderness and world-class fisheries. With that in mind, here are the basics of prohibited and restricted items entering Canada, see links below for a complete list.

It was a hot, early summer day in May and I was standing in the Davidson River near Brevard, North Carolina. I was trying my best to look like I knew what I was doing. I was casting over a pod of trout that you could easily call “monsters” by anyone's standards and in the clear, cold water I swear I could see the biggest one in the back of the pod smiling at me. He wore a sort of fishy smirk, like he knew I didn't have a shot at tempting him or any of his buddies into biting.

A Carolina-rig is a great technique for anglers to use to target deep water structure that is holding bass.  A C-Rig as it is commonly referred to is also a great way to determine what the bottom content is and what structure is available on the bottom of the lake, which is why tossing a Carolina rig is a great way to dredge the depths of any body of water.

My first pair of fishing waders looked like something out of a 1970's horror movie. You know, some guy standing on a pier cleaning fish, wielding a huge knife – his brown rubber waders covered in blood?

 The Texas part of the Elites Series was not a good thing for me, Toledo Bend was the lake. Summertime angling on this historic lake deals with structure fishing. This is my favorite way to fish. You sure could not tell by my bottom of the barrel finish in this event.  The benefit of the trip was making new friends and seeing old friends at the Skeeter Owners Tournament held at Lake Fork.