Featured Stories

If you choose the right lure styles for the situation and go at the right times, summer topwater fishing can be outstanding. Here’s what you need to know.

Late summer can be a tumultuous time to fish due to ultra-hot temps and uncooperative fish, which seem to turn their nose up to every presentation possible. The one saving grace is the topwater action you can find early in the morning or late in the evening, when bass have their short feeding periods. These periods give way to some intense action, if the right lures are chosen for the given situation. Detailed below are my top picks, by action, for late summer topwater bassin’!

Learn the techniques of four crankbait trolling experts and increase your summer crappie fishing success.

“And the Bandits Stroll Away” might sound like a country song title. Instead, it’s what Arkansas crappie guide Payton Usrey tells boat guests when the final trolling lure is in the water and it’s time for fish-catching action.

Bandits are a brand of shad-shaped crankbaits, popular with Usrey and scores of avid crappie anglers who enjoy summer trolling for the species. They rattle and have a wide wobble when retrieved.

Strolling, in fishing talk, refers to various slow-trolling techniques in which a boat’s electric trolling motor is used to move the watercraft along in a deliberate, controlled manner for presenting lures.  

Tap into the expertise of a veteran Maine outfitter and learn how to increase your success catching smallmouth bass.

“Only 99 more,” Doug Teel half-jokingly said as we released the first smallmouth bass of an afternoon. I’d spent enough time on the Penobscot River with Teel to know 100 smallmouths in a half-day outing would be a reasonable notion, so it became the goal without further discussion, and we counted down, with every smallmouth landed. The fish were still biting well when the count hit zero, and we had plenty more time we could have fished. However, we set down our rods, content with 100 even, and headed for dinner.

Teel operates Northridge Outfitters, a full-service outfitter in Maine, and turns his focus primarily to the Penobscot River’s fabulous smallmouth bass fishery through the summer. He has been fishing the river for decades and has an astounding understanding of river smallmouth behavior and how to tap into the best action.

We talked with Teel to glean his expertise and compiled six top tips that will help you catch more river smallmouth bass.

The fish pictured above isn’t the largest I have caught in my short span of searching for these beautiful green fish, but it is by-far the most memorable bass I will ever catch due to the story behind it.

Bobby Garland’s Itty Bit lures provide highly dependable summer action from several kinds of fish and lend themselves to a variety of presentations.

“This one must be a bass,” my son, Nathaniel, called out as fish he was battling surged against his ultralight gear. I paddled my kayak nearer to get a better look and photos. “Actually, it’s a giant bream!” he said when he got the fish in sight.

A few minutes later he slid his hand beneath a pound-plus shellcracker (officially, a redear sunfish), lifted it into the kayak, and the tried to figure out the best way to get a grip around the fish’s big body. We got some pictures before he returned it to the water and then returned to casting a tiny bait toward shoreline cover to see what else he could catch.

I had been telling Nathaniel about Bobby Garland’s new Itty Bit Slab Hunt’R and showing him photos of bluegills, yellow perch, largemouth bass and more – even including another big shellcracker that I’d caught from a different spot on the same lake a week prior. Finally, he was getting to see for himself and was enjoying the fast action. His big shellcracker was one about 50 fish of a handful of species we caught in a few hours of casting Itty Bits from kayaks that afternoon.

Learn the favored teaching approaches of the author, who is long-time fishing guide, plus perspectives from a professional crappie angler and a fishing industry veteran.

If you want to hook a kid on crappie fishing, you only must do two things: Keep it simple and catch crappie. Sounds easy enough, but where do you begin?

Over the years, as a guide on Beaver Lake, I have guided hundreds of young anglers out fishing with their parents. The key to having a successful day out on the water with young anglers is to keep moving and finding actively feeding fish.

Bomber minnow plugs are time-proven striped bass producers in the surf. Learn how to tap into the best coastal action.

No fish in the United States commands the passion of the surf angler like the striped bass. From Maine to New Jersey, surf fishermen plan their lives around the spring, summer and fall months for the chance to tap into hot striper action.

Going back to the advent of surf fishing for striped bass, large, long swimming plugs have been designed to mimic natural forage baitfish, including as menhaden, mullet, herring and mackerel. One lure has not only the pedigree from the old school to be considered the godfather of manufactured surf plugs, but to this day remains the top offering for any surf striper angler – the Bomber minnow plug.

Look through any old fishing magazines, and you’ll quickly see the word Bomber was omnipresent through the text. That pattern still rings true. The Bomber plug is a surf striper angler’s best friend.

The Carolina rig is highly effective for catching bass in a broad range of situations. Here’s what you need to know for Carolina rigging.

Jimmy Mason doesn’t fish the same areas across the calendar, and his bait selection certainly varies by season. However, there is one bass fishing rig he knows he can count on every month of the year — the Carolina rig.

“It works year ‘round, and I always have a minimum of two in the rod locker,” the Pickwick/Guntersville guide and tournament pro said. “This is a very versatile rig that can serve many purposes.”

Noting that he’ll vary his Carolina rig action with different styles of baits for active and lethargic periods, Mason summarizes his seasonal preferences.

Brush piles produce summer crappie. We all know that. Two top crappie anglers explain how to catch the most crappie out of each brush pile.

The formula is simple. Using the correct presentations equals success catching more and bigger crappie from brush piles.

“When I say presentation it means a number of things,” said professional crappie angler Dan Dannenmueller. “Everything from distance from the brush pile to the boat, casting distance, lure retrieve, lure color, lure size, angle of cast from the boat and everything else I can change to incite a crappie to bite.”

Before fishing a brush pile, Dannenmueller will use his sonar units from a distance to see if it has crappie in it and where they are located. He likes to stay at least 50 feet from the brush pile to avoid spooking the crappie before moving closer.