Fishing Articles — General Fishing News & Info

Not so long ago fishing with an in-line planer board was considered a novelty among serious Great Lakes anglers. Back in the days when in-line boards were just starting to pop up on the Great Lakes scene, most open water anglers were already well versed in the art of board trolling. With the help of a mast and retrieval reel system, a pair of dual boards, tether lines, and a truckload of line releases, anglers could literally saturate the water column with fishing baits! The traditional planer board and mast set up is a fish harvesting system second to none in...

I was a hunter first and a fisherman only when there were no hunting seasons open when I was young. I was mostly a self-taught hunter and there’s no lesson plan for the “school of hard knocks.” Only with time and experience did I learned the best places go as I traipsed over field and forest in quest of whatever was my quarry that day. I learned the lessons, I just didn’t know what to call them.  A few years later, as I was studying to become a wildlife biologist, some of the lessons I learned at Purdue reinforced what...

Catching panfish on first ice is not rocket science. Bluegills, sunfish, crappies, and perch are still relatively active when ice first forms. It’s basically an extension of the hot fall fishery for a while. Weeds are still green and producing oxygen, waters are not super chilled yet and panfish are still actively feeding. On first ice, you can get away with heavier line, larger floats and jumbo wax worms and still catch panfish. Things change though as winter deepens. As weeds die they become less hospitable to panfish. Oxygen levels plummet and oxygen-starved panfish become increasingly dormant. Forced out of...

Launching a boat from a trailer isn’t supposed to be an exciting task. Getting in the boat, heading out to the lake, catching some fish, now that’s fun and exciting. But just backing down the ramp and floating ol’ Wave-Whacker off the bunks is a rather mundane chore. Unless the brakes on the tow vehicle decide it’s time to malfunction! All of a sudden the slow descent down the ramp, the boat floating free and the rest of the procedure turns into a power launch. That’s what happened to me. I suppose I was lucky. A few minutes earlier I’d...

If I had to choose only one area of the Great Lakes on which to focus my late summer salmon angling attention, it would be a simple choice.  I was born and raised on Georgian Bay, I cut my teeth on Huron Chinooks when I was just a toddler, and no matter the current year, bait supply, or return rates, Huron Chinook get my nod come late August.  Caption: This Georgian Bay Chinook was taken along a bluff wall of the Bruce Peninsula in August.  The fish was caught on a GlowFrog pattern Hotfish spoon. Clean water, hard fighting salmon,...