If You Could Only Use 1 Lure…What Would It Be?
November 19, 2005
Okay, so aliens come down to earth one day and impose a strict new fishing law that says each angler can only fish with one style of lure for the rest of his or her life - which one would you choose? Never mind the fact that thinking about tackle would probably be a low priority if we had a bunch of extraterrestrial beings running around telling us how to fish. But just play along here folks, okay? So, what’s it going to be? What’s the one lure you’d put in your box?
Winterize Your Boat
September 1, 2005
If you’re like a lot of weekend warriors out there, you probably put the boat away after Labor Day and don’t use it again until Memorial Day weekend. If that’s the case, you should really winterize your vessel so that it stays in top running condition.
Oh, Those Great Balls O’ Fire!
July 30, 2004
Fishing my way through adolescence in the trout streams and lakes of the Sierra Nevada, I burned through an impressive number of green-labeled jars of Pautzke’s Balls O’ Fire salmon eggs. The “soft but satisfying” red eggs were so deadly on rainbows, browns and brookies that I rarely used anything else.
The small wild rainbows that used to live in the creek behind our house loved Pautzke’s eggs and so did the larger ones below the powerhouse in the main river. At the local trout pond, I used to pin a mini marshmallow to my hook to float my Balls O’ Fire above the weeds were the planters could see (and devour) them. And, every summer on the family campout, I’d absolutely lay waste to the truck trout that would get dumped under the bridge on our favorite creek.
Pautzke’s was my trout kryptonite all the way through high school, but in college, we began to drift apart. Suddenly, catching trout seemed a lot less interesting than chasing attractive co-eds and my fishing dropped off considerably. Of course, fishing got pushed even more towards the backburner when I got out of school, as jobs, marriage, mortgages and real life in general kicked in.
Customize Your Lures
May 7, 2004
Ever had one of those agonizing days on the water when you knew the fish were there but you just couldn’t get them to bite? Of course you have! We’ve all been through it and it can drive you absolutely nuts when the fish flat out ignore whatever you’re throwing at them. Sometimes, slow fishing is caused by environmental factors like a falling barometer or water temperatures that are too warm or cold. In those situations, there’s not much you can do other than grin and bear it and grind it out until conditions change. In other instances however, the fish may have just seen too much of the same thing and have grown “stale.” That’s when you have to throw them a change-up – give them a little different look than they’re used to.
The Big Book
May 16, 2003
An entire tackle store arrived at my house the other day. When I found it, the shop looked cramped in my mailbox – the postman had obviously rolled it like a burrito to get it to fit and now its edges were curled halfway up the inside walls. As I pulled it from the box, the tackle store sprung proudly back to shape, revealing a glossy green cover that glowed brightly in the sun. And on that cover was printed the magic word – the one that makes your pulse rate quicken, your mind wander and your wallet quake in terror – Cabela’s.
Fishing with the Right Rod?
January 2, 2002
You fishing with the right stick? If not, you’re going to catch fewer fish and you’ll probably have to work harder and longer for the ones you do catch. Sounds kinda strange because a rod is a rod, right? Well, not so fast…
Fishing rods are manufactured from many materials from good ol’ fiberglass to space age stuff like Nano-Titanium and they come in a dizzying array of lengths, weights and actions. There are rods for any type of fishing you can think of, but you have to be a bit of a code-breaker to figure out which one is best suited for your style.
