Catch everything that swims

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Catch everything that swims

 This time, we’re going to talk about how to catch everything that swims, everything that’ll eat a minnow anyway. As you can see in the film one of the best ways to do that is to fish with an ultralight jerkbait. We fished with Rapala’s smallest size Husky Jerk and X-Rap. Either one of them will do a good job when the forage is small, conditions are tough or when both of those things combine to create a challenge for any angler regardless of his or her skill level. The small forage situation pretty much speaks for itself. A lot […]

Let’s get kids fishing!

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Let’s get kids fishing!

Everybody talks about getting kids interested in fishing. Talk is good, but action is better. I’m a firm believer that the only way fishing will survive and grow is through the next generation. Getting adults out on the water won’t help a thing 50 years from now. Assuming you want to get kids out there fishing I’m going to respectfully suggest you do a couple of things. Here they are… Start with a cheap bobber and a No. 10 hook. Tie the hook a little ways under the bobber and you’re good to go. From there all you need is […]

Woody’s Hole and Shaky Heads

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Woody’s Hole and Shaky Heads

Woody’s Hole is a place on the Delaware River where the bass go when the weather turns cold. It’s affected by the tide and it has a lot of current running through it. We named it Woody’s Hole because a guy named Woody found it, not because it’s full of wood or anything like that. We fished it in late fall. The fish were starting to move in but they weren’t stacked up yet. Our trip is a great lesson in how to catch fish with finesse presentations in heavy current. We fished shaky heads because you get two presentations […]

City bass are still bass, continued…

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City bass are still bass, continued…

After we finished filming for the first episode of fishing in Central Park we changed ponds. We went to one named Harlem Meer.  It’s a little bit different in that it has almost no cover. We only had a couple of hours of daylight left so we went right to work.  You can always catch a few small water bass with a Shaky Head and a worm. As always, I used a small (3/16-ounce) Swinging Rugby Head made by VMC and attached a Havoc Bottom Hopper flat sided worm to it — green pumpkin. Apparently always doesn’t include the times […]

City Bass are Still Bass

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City Bass are Still Bass

It never fails. Break out the cameras and a cold front will blow through. That’s one of the few guarantees in life. Naturally, that’s what happened when I fished with Joe Sancho in Central Park in New York. The bite started off really slow. Then it got tough. Nothing we were throwing seemed to interest them. But, we had a show to film so we needed to do something. That something turned out to be soaking a jig. Here’s the deal: bass are bass regardless of where they live. The ponds in Central Park have some cover just like waters […]

Lures are tools

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Lures are tools

I know you hear all the time that lures are nothing more than tools. The thing is, though, it’s true. And nowhere was that more obvious than in our filming of the . It was early fall so the bass were in a transition mode. We launched our big BassCat with the Hobie kayak onboard. When we got to a backwater area we dropped the kayak into the water and went on back into a place that wasn’t accessible any other way. It was basically a perfect spot for what we wanted. There was a mixture of hydrilla and coontail […]

It’s About Changing Direction

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It’s About Changing Direction

Anybody who has followed my career and what I’ve said about crankbait fishing over the years knows that I always want to change direction with my crankbait as I wind it back to the boat. I can’t remember a time when I threw one out and just brought it back through open water. As far as I’m concerned that’s a wasted cast. There are a lot of ways to get a change of direction. You can move your rod tip left and right, or up and down. That’ll work. But, the easiest way is to just bang it into something. […]

Match the Hatch!

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Match the Hatch!

The South Jersey Slam was the one film that I would call a true winter fishing trip. We wanted to catch several species. That turned out to be an educational experience. We caught crappie, yellow perch, bluegill, pickerel and perch on small jerkbaits and grubs. There’s really nothing special about that. They bite pretty good even in cold water — we had temperatures all day in the low 40 degree range — on most conventional lures. What I really want to talk about are the bass. They’re hard to catch when the water gets that cold in my neighborhood. Fortunately, […]

Blade baits aren’t just for deep water

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Blade baits aren’t just for deep water

Here’s the deal: We’re fishing the Upper Chesapeake Bay in the early winter. It’s tidal, a cold front has blown through, the water’s cold and it’s more stained than usual. Our mission is to find and catch bass on film. After we tried all the usual baits without success we decided to do something different. We knew the bass were holding tight to hard cover and that they were in shallow water. We used a combination of Silver Buddy and Molix Trago blade baits. They’re pretty much the same except for a few refinements on the Trago. Silver Buddys are […]

Size Matters

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Size Matters

OK, you just saw Fat Head and me skipping a jig in the Salem Canal, a tributary of the Delaware River. It was the only way to catch them. Our day was cold and blustery. The fish were positioned back under the shoreline cover and aggressive doesn’t describe the bite. That’s called tough. But, we had to make the best of it. Filming, fishing a tournament or fishing on your day off work is all the same when it comes to the weather. You deal with current conditions. Period. We fished with Missile Jigs’ Mini Flip jigs. There’s a reason […]