Fishing Articles

  Author with a brace of "sublime to ridiculous" steelhead taken on top while working other lines deep. Deep currents get the water moving just under the surface, too—and steelhead like it. Great Lakes salmon use the entire water column all year. All of it—right to the bottom. Until a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study proved that salmon swim around in the deepest areas of Lake Huron, nobody was aware salmon not only go deeper than 700 feet, they split time between ultimate benthic depths and shallow water every day. Nobody, that is, except Captain Mark Chmura. When we broke...

What do brown trout, muskies, bass, reds, blues, sharks, walleyes, pike, and salmon have in common? Obviously, they’re all fish. But a violent response to rip jigging would be accepted. (Even on Jeopardy.) A friend taught me long ago that a cheap, unpainted, ball-head jig tipped with a white pork strip could consistently take big pike all summer long when “ripped.” He pitched from the deep weedline—out on the flats or right along the edge of the weeds and let the jig fall to bottom. As soon as the jig made contact, he ripped it up about 4 feet while...

Erie Walleye Can Be Shore Easy So many miles of water and where does one begin? This is the problem for Lake Erie walleye anglers.  Even though the shallowest of the Great Lakes has an estimated 26 million walleye, it also has 6,361,600 surface acres of water. Lake Erie Good Starting Points for Shore Walleye The list below offers areas with good structure covering large areas along the shoreline. The places mentioned have boat launches. Huron Harbor - From Huron Harbor troll a couple miles west.  East of the harbor is very good structure that continues all the way to Vermilion (boat launch...

Even though I remain a very confirmed lure tosser when it comes to river fishing for steelhead, brown trout, and salmon I have become very interested in the tremendous increase in the practice of bead fishing in Great Lakes tributaries. Several very successful anglers have related to me how this technique is even more effective than drifting actual eggs and spawn bags. Since I have always had an aversion to messing with eggs (in 48 years of hardcore fishing for steelhead, my life time catch of these special fish on spawn remains at two), the idea of successfully drifting beads...

  “It’s a number’s game.” Lance said. “It’s not the way most guys do it. It’s not the way I used to do it. But if you just do the math, it makes sense and when you look in my livewell at the end of the day, the numbers in there show fishing with the odds in your favor wins out most of the time.” That’s what walleye pro, turned walleye educator, turned walleye guide—just call him a walleye entrepreneur—Lance Valentine told me last July.  I fished Saginaw Bay with Lance to experience big water fishing on a pontoon boat....