Entries for 'bigmac21'

Winter walleye and sauger fishing is not for the faint of heart. Ramps are icy. Temperatures brutal. And if the wind is blowing, the cold will gnaw, layer by layer, through the warmest of clothes until your icy flesh begs for mercy.

Aside from a few relatively rare exceptions, soft plastics are denizens of the subsurface. We Texas-, Carolina- and wacky-rig them, or fish them as add-ons to jigs or specially weighted hooks.

If you want to catch the biggest catfish of your life, there’s no better place than a tidal river.

It was 1992 when NAFC blue cat guru Chris Harris of Richmond, Virginia, was fishing the James River and spotted bizarre shapes on his depthfinder. He dropped his baits to the mysterious structures and felt his sinkers tap off the tops and slide down the sides.

The image of a typical midsummer crappie fisherman has changed little over the years. Many still envision him as a simple man sculling a jonboat with one hand and working a cane pole with the other, a bucket of minnows at his feet.

A walleye is a walleye regardless of where it swims. Fishermen know the rules for catching these fish in what are considered traditional walleye waters in the North, but in “nontraditional” waters the rules change.

Small channel and blue cats are most likely to be caught on stinkbaits. These young fish eat a wider variety of foods than heavyweight adults.

Ask 100 walleye anglers their go-to presentations, and chances are, casting lipless cranks won’t even show up on the radar. If it does, it’ll get a mention as a way to pluck summer or fall fish off riprap or windswept banks.

I don’t need to tell you that multi-lure rigs are effective—trollers have long used them to juice their spreads.

The gold-colored instrument Denny Halgren plunked into the water looked like a cross between a ladle, spatula and something you might find aboard a flying saucer.