Featured Stories

We’ve gathered great crappie recipes from friends of Bobby Garland Crappie Baits in anticipation of the excellent crappie catching opportunities that always arrive this time of year.

Don’t go too big with that bird! You don’t want to be overloaded with turkey leftovers. Thanksgiving unofficially kicks off the winter crappie season in much of the country and always delivers some of the best fishing of the year.

Every angler knows that crappie are delightful on the table and can be prepared many ways. It’s easy to just fall on our old faithful ways of cooking fish. To do that is to miss out, though, so we asked some close friends of Bobby Garland Crappie Baits to share some of their favorite ways of cooking crappie.

Fish Ed TV host Jon Thelen offers insights on the factors that influence walleye behavior early in the ice season and how to use that knowledge to find fishing success.

“For the most part, they’re in the same places we left them in the fall when we were in boats,” Jon Thelen said about early ice walleyes. “They tend to be tighter to the shoreline, using main lake points, the first breaks out, and any weeds that are hanging on.”

Two primary factors influence the walleyes’ locations during the first part of the ice season, according to Thelen, who has made a lifelong study of fishing in the North Country and who makes his living teaching others how to catch more fish through Fish Ed TV. First, they follow food sources. As importantly, they are influenced by human activity – specially, fishing pressure – atop the ice.

Early ice offers some of the best opportunities of winter, and it’s a time that many anglers anticipate from the time the safe ice goes away at the end of the previous winter. Ice season will be here soon, so we asked Thelen for insights about how to find and catch the most walleyes during the first part of the ice season.

It’s no longer the talk of the tackle world, but the umbrella rig remains the hottest rig going for bass during the cold-water months.

Baits and rigs come and go.

A flashy new lure floods the market during the bloom of popularity. A few years later, it suffers the fate of fashion, tucked away in a forgotten bait tray.

Such seems the fate of the umbrella rig to many bass anglers who invested heavily in these odd-looking contraptions during the multi-rig heyday but seldom give them a second thought today. 

Not so for Tennessee River guide and bass pro Jimmy Mason, who has never confused fashion with effectiveness.

Ledges hold big concentrations of crappie this time of year. Learn how three veteran anglers find and catch crappie from ledges.

Crappie stay on the go in autumn, either looking for a quick meal during favorable conditions or seeking shelter, when the weather turns nasty. Some of the best places to find fall crappie that are moving are ledges, which are available in almost every lake in the country.

“A ledge in our part of the country is definitely a change in water depth, and most of the time, it is a pretty abrupt, pretty quick change,” said Freddie Sinclair, a full-time guide on North Carolina’s Jordan, Harris and Falls lakes. “Most of our ledges are hard bottom and rock.” Sinclair noted that a ledge could be a main channel drop along the old river channel or a creek channel drop in a cove or bay.

Texas angler Jeff Schwieterman defines a ledge as “a rapid change in depth – more of a vertical drop than slow slanting.” This crappie tournament veteran said depth changes of ledges can range from 1 foot up to 10 feet or more on the waters he frequently fishes. 

We talked with avid angler and professional meteorologist Dick Faurot about the effects of weather on fishing.

Most of us who have a passion for outdoor activities – like crappie fishing – are adept at staying on top of the weather. We have our favorite phone weather apps at our fingertips, and we know how to use them. In fact, we might be more accurate in forecasting our backyard weather than are the TV weather folks, right?

My longtime fishing buddy and retired meteorologist friend Dick Faurot laughed when I shared that thought with him, nodding like he’d heard that before.

“I’ve found when you’re right no one remembers, but when you’re wrong no one forgets,” said the Oklahoma native, who spent a combined total of 42 years in on-air weather duties with CBS-affiliated stations between Lafayette, La. and Tulsa. We are right f-a-a-a-a-r more often than we get credit for, and I like to use the analogy that we do a much better job of forecasting the weather than economists do of forecasting the economy.

“Weather is something we can’t be completely specific about every moment of every day,” he continued.

This new spoon from Lindy Legendary Fishing fills an important spot in your ice fishing lures box. Learn why it was created and how to use it for everything from bluegills to walleyes.

At times, subtle action is critical for finding good ice fishing action. At other times sound is important for calling in fish and prompting strikes. Sometimes both are true, which is why Lindy introduced the Rattl’n Quiver Spoon.

The slow fluttery fall of a Lindy Quiver Spoon has made this lightweight ice spoon a multi-species ice fishing favorite for the past few winters. At times, though, the fish need a little help finding a bait before they can be coaxed into biting. The Rattl’n Quiver Spoon uses the same shape and light metal construction as the original Quiver Spoon. However, a rattle built into a protruding eye delivers the sound that is sometimes needed to call fish into range and finish the job of prompting strikes.

Late fall, when the mats on grass lakes begin breaking up, is prime time call up big bass with a frog. Read on for expert advice on frog fishing from a veteran bass guide.

“You saw where that was, right?” Jimmy Mason asked, as he reeled his frog quickly away from where a bass had just blasted through the milfoil but missed his bait. “Cast right into the blowhole.”

I followed instructions and happily hit the mark because the bass slurped down my frog almost before it landed. I set the hook hard and then reeled steadily to get the fish turned my way before it dug any deeper in the thick stuff. Soon after I was lip landing 3 1/2 pounds of Lake Guntersville largemouth and another pound or two of vegetation. We kept working the same area and caught three more solid frog bass before returning to search mode.

There are few ways to catch bass that are more fun than casting a BOOYAH Pad Crasher across big mats of vegetation and prompting bass to bust through the grass. Anticipation stays high, especially on a lake like Guntersville, where you know that any bass that explodes on your frog could be a legitimate heavyweight.

Learn winning swim jig strategies for autumn bass fishing from two anglers who have been swimming jigs for many years.

Fall is generally a disjointed time, with bait schools on the move and bass hot on their heels. Action can occur just about anywhere, so anglers need a bait that goes just about anywhere. For such autumn diversity, it’s hard to beat a BOOYAH Mobster swim jig.

“It’s always on my deck because I’m going to throw it around any piece of wood, any dock, any piece of cover that I think the fish may be relating to,” said Oklahoma pro Brent Haggard. “It’s such a huge part of fall fishing, I always have several tied on.”

Chad Warner, Director of Product Development for BOOYAH Bait Company agrees and notes that the swim jig easily earns a spot in his top five fall offerings.

Bridges produce consistently good crappie action, if you know how to fish them. Learn the approaches of several top anglers.

We drive over them in our cars. We ride under them in our boats, often on the way from one fishing hole to another. Many anglers hardly give them a second thought. But when it comes to crappie fishing, maybe bridges should be an angler’s first thought.

Fishing around bridges takes a lot of the guesswork out of finding crappie, says Oklahoma fishing guide Mike Taylor. Many of his favorite waters, including Lake Eufaula, are home to multiple bridges. He rarely drops a crappie jig in the water anywhere else before pulling up to a bridge area and looking with his electronics. He’s looking for baitfish and crappie.