Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i Game & Fish East

Todd Faircloth is one of the most consistent pros on tour. The Texas native has earned over $2.2 million dollars, while finishing in the money an astounding 154 times in 214 tournament entries. Faircloth is known for bringing limits to the scales without fail, even when others struggle to catch fish. Here, he shares his post-spawn strategies. 1. AS BASS COME OFF THE SPAWN, WHERE DO YOU LOOK FOR THEM? Following the spawn, bass are looking for secondary and main lake points. Those fish that spawned will be pulling out of the spawning coves and pockets and heading closer to the main lake. It is a time of transition. 2.WHAT IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF POST-SPAWN GEAR? I rely on my Lowrance HDS Sonar a lot during the post-spawn.…

TALK ABOUT A high degree of difficulty. It’s hard to know sometimes just what gift to get every person on your Christmas list. Now imagine if you had to buy one gift that would satisfy everyone, regardless of age, interest and skill level. Tough, right? Well, that’s sometimes what it’s like planning a family fishing trip. Part of the group wants to do serious fishing. Others are more concerned about what other activities are available. Some just want space to picnic, preferably in a park with clean restrooms. Not to worry. Here are five waters that offer good and varied fishing, plus picnic areas, camping, restrooms and more. NORTH PARK LAKE The shine was off the apple for a while there at North Park Lake. The 75-acre lake located in…

PENNSYLVANIA IS blessed with a wide assortment of bass-fishing venues. The big waters such as Wallenpaupack, Raystown, Youghiogheny, Shenango, Blue Marsh and Pymatuning meet the needs of those who like their bass fishing on a grander scale. Medium to smaller-sized impoundments offer bassin’ on a more intimate level, and often feature even higher bass densities. And flowing waters of the three major river drainages add the “river smallie” bass element, from the main rivers themselves to their many tributaries. Bob Lorantas serves as the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission’s Warmwater Unit Leader. As such, he oversees the management of state’s black bass resource, and receives input from area biologists from all regions of the state. From what Lorantas reports, bass anglers have good reason to be optimistic about this year’s…

In 2000, at the Gateway Classic Match tournament on Spanish Lake in St. Louis, Mo., P.J. Perea caught and released a 38-inch, 18-pound, 3-ounce grass carp on a 22-foot pole without a reel. The fish was registered and confirmed as a world record, a worthy accomplishment for any angler. Over the next 15 years, Perea kind of forgot about the record, until he learned that it was still current, and his photo was hanging in the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame and Museum in Hayward, Wis. Then, in 2017, Perea was the lead fishing instructor at the Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree in West Virginia, teaching finesse fishing techniques. He ended up helping Mark, a scout from the National Capital Area Council, who was having some problems catching fish.…

If there’s one skill that pros have honed to a razor’s edge, it’s the most basic of them all: how to locate fish quickly. It’s actually the most important part of their job, especially for those pros who fish the unique tournament format called Major League Fishing. MLF anglers compete in a hyper-speed format, where the sole goal every competition day is to rack up as many pounds of bass as possible in a 7 1/2-hour window against a half-dozen other pros trying to do the exact same thing. Bobby Lane, 2017 MLF World Champion, said, “We’re under the gun to find fish and figure out what they want that day from the word ‘Go!’ It’s really just a test of some basic fishing skills that every angler should have,…

LIFE WOULD be pretty boring without technology. There is no doubt we’d catch fewer fish without sonar, fishing apps and detailed lake maps. Of course, there is something to be said for the way of fishing that many of us started out on. That is, a worm, a snelled Eagle Claw bait hook, probably too heavy a line weight and a Zebco 33. Like then, so much of why we love fishing has to do with the mystery of what we can entice from a black lake or channeled river. Did you ever notice that almost every strike feels inordinately strong and promising at first? That’s the pull of fishing that keeps us coming back. Sometimes the fish is big, and worth a hoot and a howl. Other times, it…

“Kiss,” my wife Dawn said. “Not now, Hon. Can’t you see I’m busy?” I had the entire contents of my fishing tackle box spread across the kitchen table. “No,” she said. “I mean K.I.S.S. the acronym.” “Acronym? Is that like an emoji?” “No,” she said. “It’s like ‘keep it simple...’” “Steve,” I finished for her. “I get it. Keep it simple Steve.” “You are simple,” she said. “You don’t understand. I am trying to keep it simple. That’s the point of dumping everything out onto the table. I just want to be ready, because an opportunity to fish might pop up unexpectedly at any moment.” “Usually, it’s at the moment I ask you to do something around the house,” she said. “You working-class people are so close-minded,” I said. “You…

WALLEYES’ DISDAIN for bright sunshine is accentuated early in the year, when they spend more time in shallow water, and on most such days the best action occurs early and late. Watch the forecast, though. On those extra-dark days on the front side of a cold front, the walleyes will stay shallow and feed all day long. Rain and a bit of wind make it even better because those conditions break up the surface and reduce light penetration. Basically, the drearier the weather, the better the spring walleye fishing, so get good raingear and plan your fishing days accordingly!…

SPRING TURKEY hunting can be a tough row to hoe, particularly in highly pressured areas where gobblers have a couple spring hunting seasons under their beards. The biggest challenge for most is overcoming the turkey’s eyesight. I can think of any number of superlatives to describe it, but let’s just say it’s nothing less than phenomenal and has undoubtedly been the downfall of many hunts. With that said, we need all the edge we can get. One of the best is a portable hunting blind. BENEFITS OF A BLIND No matter how well camouflaged from head to toe, no matter how much stealth and tact we put forth, turkeys have an uncanny ability to detect even the slightest movement or noise. The biggest benefit of hunting from a ground blind…

GIVEN THAT not all bass spawn at the same time, and that they generally use the same routes to go to and from their spawning grounds, the reality is that when you’re fishing a dropoff or creek channel outside of a spawning area you may be targeting pre-spawn and post-spawn bass at the same time. The question, then, is whether it really matters what stage of the spawn the fish you catch are in. The argument I put forth is that it really doesn’t. When you locate what amounts to “mixing areas” away from the bank, you can find fish in both stages of the spawn. Certainly, it’s easy to tell if a fish has gone through the rigors of spawning because it generally will have red marks and damaged…