Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2024 i In-Fisherman

Staff Tested Tough Garmont Tactical Boots are high-performance footwear for Military, Law Enforcement, and EMS/Rescue applications, but also serve superbly in the boat or on the bank, says In-Fisherman Editor In Chief Doug Stange after wearing a pair of T-H Groove G-Dry for the past two seasons. The comfortable, durable, lightweight boots have Vibram S381outsoles plus G-Dry membrane for waterproofing and breathability—check website for pricing, garmonttactical.com Protection, Comfort, Durability The Skeleton Optics Outlaw Original Edition has polarized p oly-carbonate lenses by Zeiss, ensuring clear vision while reducing fa tigue and discomfort caused by water glare. The advanced TRI-PEL/RI -PEL coating enhances visual clarity, and the lenses are scratch- and im pact-resistant. A TR-90 Frame ensures durability—$219, skeletono ptics.com Rigid, Durable T winpower FE The Twinpower FE spinning reel from Shimano…

Shadows track behind a slowly swimming jig. The plastic tail wobbles enticingly as it slows even further. The shadows close in. Getting closer to the boat. An almost imperceptible nibble transmits up the line. Crappie! Crappies and bluegills may not always bite a small soft swimmer on a 1/32- to 1/16-ounce jig, but they often follow. It’s a great method for finding panfish in sprawling river bayous. It works in backwaters across the country. If they won’t take the swimmers, go back through them with floats and bait. I’ve fished river backwaters from Louisiana to Minnesota. What panfish are doing in May depends on latitude. River panfish up north are doing what those backwater slabs and bulls down south were doing in March. Whatever they’re doing, backwaters of the biggest…

When you get your butt handed to you on a silver platter like the other 129 teams in the tournament, you sit up and take notice. That’s what happened at the 2004 Canadian Bass Championship on Rainy Lake, when James and Bill Lindner stunned the crowd, winning for the second consecutive year. What made matters worse is that my partner and I were fishing the island point directly across from the Lindners and it seemed like every time we turned around they were netting another big bass. Even more intriguing was that we never saw them make a cast. Instead, they were dropping their baits below the boat while sitting nonchalantly in their seats, with the trolling motor set on medium speed. That’s the bad news. The good news is…

Back before I retired, I attended meetings of the American Fisheries Society held across the U.S. and even a couple in Canada. At these meetings, fishery professionals exchanged ideas and shared results of research projects conducted to better understand how fish populations function and to evaluate techniques aimed at producing healthier fish populations and better fishing. In conjunction with these meetings, the hosts often provided fishing opportunities for attendees. I feel fortunate to have caught salmon in Alaska and Washington, white sturgeon in Idaho, spotted seatrout and largemouth bass in Texas, spotted bass in Missouri, smallmouth bass in Wisconsin and New York, yellow perch in Pennsylvania, and blue catfish in Virginia. I hardly consider myself a “Master Angler,” but certificates from New York for catching and releasing a 21½-inch smallmouth…

Natural History—Every North American paddlefish, or spoonbill, has a hole in its head. Frequently unnoticed, but easy to see, it appears as an oval at the base of the bill: a light smudge in a live fish, a gaping aperture in the skull. For an adult paddlefish, having a 12- to 15-inch-long bill, the hole is typically almost a half-inch wide and more than three-quarters of an inch long, slightly larger than a man’s fingernail. It’s centered above and between the eyes and is readily observed on paddlefish taken during the snagging season that begins mid-March in Missouri and ends mid-June in Montana. This anatomical oddity is usually overlooked by anglers and biologists who focus on the animal’s enormous bill. The paddle of the paddlefish is an impressive flat antenna…

For the last 100 years, unusually large largemouth bass have inspired a remarkable level of interest among anglers worldwide. Once railroad lines extended to Florida from big northern cities, affluent anglers traveled to the original big-bass mecca of the Sunshine State in their quest for wall-hangers. While big fish are always a draw, specialist anglers who favor walleyes, trout, panfish, marine species, or even muskies seem less focused on catching unusually large ones. Genetics As our knowledge of fish genetics has grown over the last four decades, we’ve seen how important these microscopic molecules are in determining fish behavior, growth, and many other characteristics. Now that the foremost fish genetics experts have determined that what we once considered two subspecies of largemouth bass are indeed two species—northern largemouth bass and…

Meet Fred, a 45-pound flathead catfish living in a river somewhere in the U.S. Doesn’t matter which river, because Fred would behave roughly the same no matter where he lived. Researchers have discovered that while no two flatheads behave exactly alike, all of them follow the same basic rules—winter, spring, summer and fall—from the day they hatch til the day they die. Anglers who understand Fred’s day-to-day lifestyle, in conjunction with his seasonal cycles, have better chances of meeting him and his kin face to face. In-Fisherman’s Calendar Periods describe Fred’s annual cycle well: Winter, Prespawn, Spawn, Postspawn, Summer, Fall, and back to Winter. The exact timing of the phases varies around the country. Prespawn, for example, may be in late March or April in Texas but not until May…

We’ve covered a lot of technology and related applications in this column, hopefully to a point that’s given you confidence to get out, experiment, and find a way to work modern fishing electronics into your arsenal. So, what’s the best way to power all this gear? If you’re running three, four, or even five graphs, quality power is critical. And as the electronics have evolved, so have the batteries meant to power them. To learn more about lithium battery types and calculating amp hours, take a second look at “Screen Scene” from the latest December/January/February edition of In-Fisherman magazine. For the sake of our discussion here, let’s quickly review how to determine amp-hour (Ah) draw. A quick Google search requesting amp-hour draw for Humminbird Solix 10-inch or whatever graph is…

Our tackle boxes, bins, and boats are teeming with baits for specific techniques and situations. Some are “go-to” presentations that we can’t hit the water without. Others were purchases based on curiosity or hype, didn’t catch much, and simply take up space. Seems like the best bass baits are always discovered by guides and pros first, but sometimes they emerge from the tinkering of regular anglers, too. Most are kept under the radar but word eventually gets out—slowly in the case of some homespun creations or waving banners in the case of mainstream bait manufacturers. And some come from overseas—especially Japan—and are slowly adopted by domestic anglers. Below, we look at three oddball bass baits with Japanese origins that have come stateside and are being thrown by inquisitive, in-the-know anglers.…

Years ago, I was very pleased to have Joe and Tony Puccio (Bait Rigs Tackle) join me on the Mississippi River. We were targeting (what else?) the impressive smallmouths that dwell there. Joe surprised both of us by pulling out a blue-white Rapala Shad Rap. He kicked our butts. I was clocked in my backyard. I live on the Mississippi River. Every crankbait I’d learned to trust to that point failed to turn the tables. I would never have suspected, at the time, that a walleye crank would be so effective for smallmouths. I didn’t even have one on the boat. Never again. Always a few Shad Raps on board—especially in spring and fall. Since that day decades ago, I’ve had dozens of pros tell me how effective Shad Raps…

During the early 1990s, In-Fisher- man published two notable articles authored by avid muskie angler and historian Larry Ramsell. The articles appeared in the November 1991 and February 1992 magazine issues. They contained a host of novel observations regarding 20 large muskies that ranged in size from 18 to 45 pounds and were implanted with radio telemetry transmitters on the renowned muskie fisheries of Eagle Lake and Lake Wabigoon. The project was conducted as part of Bernard LeB-eau’s doctorate degree program at the University of Toronto. Based on Ramsell’s involvement with the study, he offered findings regarding the home-range feeding and digestion ranges of muskies, along with the size and characteristics of those ranges, the aggregation habits of large muskies, and how location affects catchability. While so much valuable fishing information…

Growing up fishing the Upper Midwest, redear sunfish were one of those “other” panfish like fliers or Sacramento perch. They had a certain mystique because their range was outside our fishing area. Plus, they grew larger than bluegills and pumpkin-seeds and had a cool nickname—shellcracker. The shellcracker name seemed more fitting for a saltwater species like sheepshead than a sunfish. Then again, these weren’t your typical “pan-size” sunfish. Adding to the lore was the conventional wisdom of fishing the full-moon phase in spring for the best shot at a trophy fish. Again, this was more reminiscent of saltwater fishing for marlin than pursuing panfish. Hearing stories during the 1990s of bruiser redears topping 2 to 3 pounds caught from the Diversion Canal of South Carolina’s Santee-Cooper lake was mind-boggling. In…

Smallmouth bass are often considered the nomads of the black bass clan. Many a brown bass angler has lamented the here-today-gone-tomorrow syndrome. I have mumbled similar thoughts, but I have also seen fairly small areas continue to hold good numbers of small-mouths for weeks if they were not fished hard. Of course, seasonal patterns prevail, and very often good postspawn and midsummer areas continue to hold fish year after year. But this may be changing with increasing fishing pressure. Maybe the increased fishing effort has stimulated these purportedly mobile fish to live up to their nomadic reputation. Fishery scientists have been busy learning about smallmouth bass movement. Studying Movement Fishery studies in the 1950s and 1960s that relied on marking and recapturing fish established that at least some lake smallmouths…