Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2022 i In-Fisherman

Rogues Huk Rogue Waves are mid-ankle boots with neoprene and rubber uppers for durability and comfort, with GripX Wet Traction outsoles (non-marking) to keep you anchored where you stand on deck. A molded footbed adds further comfort and heavy-duty pull tabs make sliding the boots on a snap—$90 and $100 (men’s) and $90 (women’s), huk.com Not Your Grandpa’s Lipless One of a host of new-on-the-scene lure designs from Nomad Tackle, the lipless Swimtrex vibrates dramatically on a lift or straight retrieve and swims and hunts uniquely on the fall. Autotune technology keeps Swimtrex running true, an internal weight producing a subtle low-frequency knock. Three sizes range from the 66, at 2.5 inches and 1/2 ounce, to the 72, at 3 inches and 1 ounce. Check beautiful finishes—$11.99 to $12.99, nomadtackle.com…

“Civil twilight” occurs every evening. The sky is getting darker and suddenly brightens. It occurs briefly before sunrise, too. It may last 5 minutes or so in the middle latitudes. At the poles, where night lasts all winter, civil twilight can endure for weeks at a time. In most of the world, it represents the brightest moments in the twilight period. Crepuscular beings are most active in twilight periods. Smallmouths are sight-feeders. Do they have a crepuscular advantage during the “twilight zone”? Some fish, like walleyes, thrive in twilight periods. “I’ve guided clients to more trophy walleyes during those few minutes of civil twilight than all other times during the day combined,” says Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame inductee and guide Greg Bohn. “Civil twilight is a signal that…

GoPro action cameras are known for producing incredible POV footage that brings a unique perspective to all sorts of activities, but a lesser-known feature is the quality of pictures they can produce as well. The latest model is the Hero10 ($350) and it’s jammed full of features that help bring to life and preserve your fishing experiences. If you’re on your own, mount the GoPro on your windshield or dash with a Jaws ($49.99) and Gooseneck ($19.99) combo clamp or the Suction Cup mount ($39.99), switch the GoPro to “Time Lapse” mode and let it eat. If set up correctly, the GoPro will take a picture per second, providing for interesting candid shots as well as classic grip-and-grins. Picture quality is outstanding. Scan this code with your smart-phone to learn…

Finding early to midsummer yellow perch can be a needle-and-haystack affair because perch roam a variety of areas from muddy flats to deep holes, ledges, and breaks, provided forage is abundant. But from late July onward, jumbos frequently gravitate toward transitions from hard to soft bottom. Key depths can vary from 10 feet in shallow inland systems to 40 feet or more on the Great Lakes and other large, deep fisheries. Sand or rocks adjacent to soft, mucky bottom are ideal. Here, too, food is key. Clouds of baitfish are a good sign jumbos may be in the neighborhood. But transition areas give jumbos the option of grazing insects from the mud or chasing minnows on harder substrates. Scattered vegetation on the hard side of the line is a nice…

Today, rod holders and the hardware that accompanies them are highly evolved tools with a great deal of engineering put into them. Used in a variety of scenarios from high-speed trolling big water to being tied off to brush in small creek, a rod holder is simple. They’re utilized heavily in panfishing, especially in the American South, but they’re also used on the Great Lakes for trout and salmon, throughout the Midwest and Plains states for heavy hitters like muskies and especially walleyes, and pretty much anywhere catfish are pursued. Simply put, the game is bigger now than it ever was, making the equipment for it more specialized as a result. Panfish Prowling Utter the term “crappie fishing” to nearly half of the U.S., and most of those anglers can’t…

Twilight is defined as those periods of time separating sunset from dusk and dawn from sunrise. Each twilight is divided into three segments by astronomers and navigators: Astronomical, Nautical, and Civil. Before sunrise, as the sun reaches a point 18° below the horizon, astronomical twilight begins. When the sun is 12° below the horizon, nautical twilight takes over. And when the sun comes within 6° of the horizon, civil twilight begins, and it ends as the sun reaches the horizon (sunrise) The process is reversed in the evening, with civil twilight occurring first. The length of each period changes with latitude and with time of year. At the poles, civil twilight can last for weeks during early winter and again during late winter. At the Equator, the entire twilight period…

Now consider multiple-fish days and how rare those experiences are. For most muskie anglers, catching two fish in a day is as good as it gets, and I’d never turn up my nose to that level of success. Although even more unlikely are numbers of willing fish that make it into the bottom of the net in only a few hours. It happens. Consider the level of success that a team consisting of Shane Akin and Matt Ahrenholtz experienced during a 2021 Professional Muskie Tournament Trail event. They caught 12 muskies, registering nine of them during the allotted tournament hours in a single day. Impressive numbers that set a PMTT record. But why it happens is the million-dollar question. Muskies are indeed patternable, but predicting a bite like what Ahrenholtz…

Lots of you have asked, so I thought I’d take time to answer: Fishing at night has for me never been a consistent connection to larger channel cats, even during the hottest part of summer. Occasionally, yes. Most times, no. So after more than 30 years of spending hundreds of nights on the prowl, I believe that no overwhelming big-fish pattern prevails. A minor pattern here. A minor pattern there. Just depends. Fishing at night is, however, good enough to be worthy of note. And even if it weren’t, I’d still do it just for the excitement and the chance to share a campfire with friends. Now I know a few of you like a little story with your catfishin’, particularly if it includes my old buddies Zacker and Toad.…

“No wiggle room?” “None at all,” he said. “I’ve been putting off this knee replacement for three years, and the pain’s gotten so awful I can hardly make it to my basement to check my hooch supply.” “That bad, huh?” “The surgeon says it has to be the first week in June, and at least a two-night post-op stay.” “Been there, done that,” I said. “Say, didn’t we fish without you the year your granddaughter was born?” “She’s turns 13 next week.” “Wow. That long ago?” “Skipping only two trips in 40 is quite a run, but it’s killing me to miss even one more.” “I have passed up a few myself, so I know the feeling.” “By the way, you already bought the food for six,” Doc said, “so…

■ LAKE SAKAKAWEA NEW TOWN, NORTH DAKOTA Walleyes » The population is still trending well above average, with lots of 15- to 18-inch fish, and many much larger, including trophy-sized fish. Contact: Guide Mike Liebel, 701/770-6746, liebelsguideservice.com; Guide Mike Peluso, 701/471-8649, mikepelusooutdoors.com. In-Fisherman ■ SPINNEY MOUNTAIN RESERVOIR HARTSEL, COLORADO Pike and Trout » The right combination of size limits, species management, and distance from Denver, which reduces fishing pressure, produces big numbers of trophy rainbows and cutthroats well above 21 inches; and pike surpassing 30 pounds are released every year. Contact: Guides Dustin Sigler and Josh Sedivy, 720/775-7770, tightlineoutdoors.com. David Harrison ■ BEAVER LAKE ROGERS, ARKANSAS Striped Bass » Stable summer weather produces fine fishing for stripers from 10 to over 30 pounds, often on the prowl after dark, sometimes…

Lake stratification is a result of water temperature, but how it affects fish is as much about dissolved oxygen as it is temperature. Lakes go through an annual cycle of cold to warm and back to cold. Starting in the early spring in the South or after ice out on northern lakes, the water is cold top to bottom. Spring winds generate water currents that mix the water. The circulation occurs throughout the water column, surface water mixing with bottom water. Water warming is primarily a result of solar energy (sunlight). As the days get longer and the sun is more overhead, more solar energy penetrates the water. The solar energy is converted to heat when it strikes the lake bottom and particles, like plankton and clay turbidity, suspended in…

These graphs show temperature and dissolved oxygen (DO) profiles at Ten Mile Lake, Minnesota, a deep, clear, oligo-mesotrophic lake with a photic zone depth of 40 to 50 feet. Stratification has just occurred by May 30 and the lake will probably mix in October. The epilimnion is the lake zone above the thermocline, and the hypolimnion is the zone below the thermocline. Note the high DO throughout the water column in May shortly after stratification but depletion of oxygen in the hypolimnion by mid-summer. Data provided by Dr. Bruce Carlson.…

There was a time I actually believed it. For about a four-year period in the early 2000s, I rarely fished a minnow, leech, or ‘crawler for walleyes. My big homemade minnow tank merely collected cobwebs. Those first several years after we got serious about pitching Jigging Rapala-style lures, you could spot-lock and induce bite after bite from wolfpacks in rapid succession. When we first showed walleyes that rapid, random dart-dart-dive action, fish often ate the lure so intensely and with so little hesitation that dropping a big minnow never entered our thought process. Caught loads of 5-, 7-, and 9-pound fish, and more than a couple heavyweights. But a few years in, while sorting through photos, I realized most of the large fish I’d caught—before and after the initial “artificials-only”…

During a two-day stretch filming a couple of segments of In-Fisherman TV, the author and guide Luke Swanson of Livin’ The Dream Guide Service managed to catch eight muskies in two days on both suckers and slow pull-pause baits. Fish length ranged from the low 40s up to two huge 49-inchers. The combined edges during this experience included current breaks near shoreline eddies, gravel veins adjacent to deeper holes, cold water, and increasing daytime temperatures into the low 50s. The key was finding staging fish with Humminbird Side Imaging as they waited to ambush prey along current seams. Once a muskie profile was located, a sucker was drifted down to their estimated position, or the fish were presented with slow-moving, flashy baits—and the muskies would often eat or make an…

Tom Neustrom’s cabbage spinner setup is a study in efficient simplicity: A 38- to 40-inch section of 15- to 17-pound-test monofilament or fluorocarbon (heavy line helps prevent bite-offs from pike), with a hammered gold #2 to #3 Indiana spinner blade on a folded metal clevis, 5 to 7 red beads, and a #1 or 1/0 gold, long-shank Aberdeen hook. The leader connects to the mainline via a #1 barrel swivel, with a bullet sinker sliding on the mainline. Thread a 2-inch chub or golden shiner on the hook.…

It’s fall now in the Ozarks, prime time for those bold and beautiful spawning browns. I hunt only sizable bucks. The big girls carry future generations in their belly, do most of the tough stuff, and simply do not need another annoyance. Plus, I hear Dad’s voice extolling the virtues of being a conscientious angler. And though my dad did not phrase it this way, his message was nonetheless undeniably clear: Even if the big female pulls you toward her like a magnet and even if she’s right there in front of you looking as fetching as ever and even if she’s legal to land, it does not mean you are entitled to her. I’m the first one on the tiny island, quiet in every way one can be quiet.…