Tactics

THE PHRASE “IN THE ZONE” GETS THROWN AROUND IN FISHING

just as much as it does in other sports. For an angler, of course, that zone is nothing physical, but the feeling you get when everything starts to click. It’s a sixth-sense intuition only anglers can understand. You can almost predict that your lure, bait, or fly is about to get hit, because you know that on this cast, on this drift, every element of the presentation is perfect. However, you don’t often just stumble into the zone. Getting there requires a working knowledge of the body of water you’re fishing, an understanding of how fish behave, and the ability to decipher when you should completely change your approach. Most successful anglers are familiar with a multitude of tactics on their home waters, and recognize when to put each into play based on everything from the season to the weather to a quick shift in wind direction while they’re already on the water.

A few years ago I was fishing with guide Mike Neher on the White River in Arkansas, famed for producing some of the heaviest brown trout in the U.S. Unfortunately, my trip coincided with a drought that made the river super low and gin clear. The fishing was tough, but then, as the sun began to set, something changed. The river level rose a foot because of a dam release and late-day shadows darkened the water. Neher passed me a long stickbait and we caught big brown after big brown aggressively twitching those large lures. Had we tried the tactic earlier in the day, the same lures would have done nothing but spook the trout. We stayed in the zone that night because Neher knew when to switch the approach based on a few subtle changes in the environment. The best way to acquire those skills and instincts is through experience on the water, though the tactics in this chapter will get you started.

219 BEAT THE WEEDS FOR FALL TROUT

Autumn can be a fabulous time to fish for trout, but to be successful you’ve got to learn to deal with the vegetation and change your tactics. After a summer’s worth of growth, beds of aquatic plants spread in thick mats on the surface. Fish holding alongside or between islands of weeds or in shallow channels through the salad are supernaturally wary. Avoid wading if at all possible and stalk from the bank. Crouch. Creep. Crawl. Slither on your belly like a reptile. Do whatever it takes to get directly across from, or slightly below, the fish. Cast from a kneeling or sitting position.

Long, drag-free drifts are neither feasible nor necessary over shallow-lying fish holding around the weeds. A trout sees the surface of the water in a circular window centered above its head; the radius of the circle is roughly equal to the depth of the fish. A trout holding a foot down won’t see your dry fly until it’s 12 inches away. Drop the fly at the upstream edge of this window, laying your line directly atop any intervening vegetation. Let the fly float past the downstream edge of the window before picking it up—very quietly. If a hatch is in progress, it’s likely bluewing olives. Fish a size 18 Parachute BWO or emerger pattern. When nothing’s hatching, choose a Parachute Adams or Crowe Beetle in the same size; small hook gaps are less likely to end up snagging on vegetation when you pick up the fly for another cast.

Bankside weeds and grasses reach their maximum height and droop low to the water, forming archlike tunnels that give trout shade and cover. To fish these prime runs, look for an entrance to the tunnel. Stay as far downstream from the opening as you can while still being able to pinpoint it with a cast. Drop a size 14 Elk Hair Caddis or ant pattern a few inches from the bank and let it snake down the tunnel. Your view may be screened, so strike at any disturbance.

If the overhanging vegetation is mostly long strands of grasses, you can take a brute-force approach: Use a pattern that is compact and bulletlike—a Dave’s Hopper is good. Cast a tight loop to drive the fly through a thin spot in the curtain of grass. You may snag up a few times, but this tasty water is worth the trouble

Fall is terrestrial time on spring creeks, and the bugs are most active on warm, sunny days. Wherever you find open water or unobstructed banks that allow for a longer drift, flying-ant, beetle, and hopper patterns make excellent prospectors.

220 FIND A SECRET FISHING SPOT

Those little ponds in manicured neighborhoods and tucked behind strip malls can surprise you with bass, pickerel, crappies, and bluegills that are bigger and less pressured than those in the closest reservoir. You may never see such spots from main roads, so begin with some online sleuthing.

GO ONLINE Thanks to Google Maps, finding small bodies of water is easy. Start by entering your address into the search box and then zoom in or out until the scale in the bottom left corner of the map reads 1 inch = 500 feet. Look for water, searching a mile or two at a time in all directions. For hidden gems, focus on housing developments, shopping centers, and office complexes.

GO LOCAL Neighborhood ponds often existed long before the homes were built. Ponds in new developments are frequently stocked with gamefish to control mosquito populations and lily pads or milfoil to aerate the water. Heavy-commerce areas often have runoff retention basins (look by the back parking lots) or decorative ponds that hold fish. Of course, you can also find ponds hidden in the woods or a farmer’s field, but fishing those may require knocking on doors. Not all of them will be accessible, of course, but that’s all part of the hunt.

INVESTIGATE One pond, just 2 miles from my home and ringed by backyards except at one corner, produced a 3-pound bass and a few of its smaller cousins the first time I visited. I was treated to a real surprise while scoping out a fountain-filled pond on the property of a local community college. So many big carp were sipping in the film that the pond has since become my favorite place to flyfish for this species.

221 KNOW YOUR CRAPPIE

Prized as excellent table fare—especially when deep-fried—both black and white crappies can be found throughout the country and are one of the more scrappy members of the panfish family. With a larger mouth than sunfish and bluegills, crappies are more prone to attacking larger lures and baits, such as stickbaits and shiners. One of the most effective lures, however, is a small tube jig. Most anglers simply cast and retrieve tube jigs, but they can also be fished under a float or trolled. Crappies gravitate to areas with plenty of structure, with rockpiles, brushpiles, and weedlines being some of their favorites. Though during spring spawning crappies can be found in relatively shallow water, most of the time fishing around deeper structure is a better bet. Hook into a 3-pounder, and you’ve got a giant, but the current world-record black and white crappies top the 4- and 5-pound mark.

222 SNEAK UP ON MORE FISH

Fish are extremely sensitive to vibrations and instantly become wary when they sense an intruder. After wading into a new area, stand perfectly still for 2 minutes. It will feel like an hour, but you’ll get more strikes. In a boat, wait 2 minutes after shutting off your motor before casting. Boat fishermen will also spook fewer fish by keeping the motor at a steady, low rpm as they approach the areas they plan to fish.

223 HOLD YOUR BREATH

A good rule of thumb that will help you release fish with less stress is to hold your breath as soon as you take the fish out of the water. When you start feeling like you need to breathe, assume the fish does, too. This will help you learn to unhook fish quickly and not spend too much time taking pictures of the catch.

224 RELEASE FISH UNHARMED

Hang a washcloth from your belt when fishing. Wet the cloth and use it to grip any fish you intend to release. This allows you to get a firm grip without applying excessive pressure that can damage the fish’s internal organs. Moistening the cloth minimizes the amount of protective coating the fish loses.

225 AVOID DOUBLE-HAUL MISTAKES

Like most aspects of fly casting, the double haul is more about feel and timing than it is about power. Simply put, to double haul you use your noncasting hand to pull the fly line away from the rod tip in an abrupt, well-timed burst—thus increasing the resistance and flex in the rod—first on the back cast and then on the forward cast. By increasing that flex, you boost line speed. And if you maintain a well-formed loop during your cast, that added energy translates to distance. The trick is to avoid these three common mistakes:

TOO MUCH LINE You need to feel what you’re doing in order to to get your timing down, and that’s hard to do with 60 feet of line flying overhead. Start short, with maybe 20 feet of line. Pull the line on your back cast, feel the resistance, and let the line spring back through the guides (sliding through your fingers so you can pinch it again). Give it another tug on the forward cast, release, and shoot the cast. Don’t try long casts until you get the groove with short ones.

NOT GIVING THE LINE BACK TO THE ROD You’re sunk if your cast ends up with your line hand down by your hip pocket, 3 feet away from your casting hand, with dead line flapping in between. All the energy is lost. You want your hands to spring apart and come together, like you’re playing an accordion. If you’re stuck on this, tie your wrists together with a 20-inch piece of string.

HOLDING ON When it’s time to let fly with that cast, let go of the line! Haul on the back cast, haul on the forward cast, feel the flex, and when your loop gets ahead of your rod tip, let go of the line as if you’re shooting a slingshot through the guides on your rod. Hanging on kills the cast. You’ll soon learn how to gently release and regather the line with your fingertips as you’re double hauling.

226 UNSTICK YOURSELF

If you find yourself stuck against a rock (1), the worst thing you can do is recoil. Leaning away from the rock shifts weight upstream, forcing that side of the boat or raft to dip deeper in the current (2) and upping your odds of sliding up onto the rock and getting pinned there. If you hit a rock, it’s typically best to lean into the rock (3), so water pressure can buoy the boat and help spin you off to the side.

The oarsman can help spin the boat free by pulling back on the upstream oar if the rock is in front of the center point of the boat (4) or by pushing forward if the rock is behind the center point.

227 GET UPSTREAM

To move upriver, take the boat from the main current into an eddy and then backstroke in slack current (1). Moving from fast water to slow, and vice versa, can be very dangerous. Enter an eddy with the bow angled only very slightly into or out of the current. Never position your boat broadside to a strong current transition, or you risk turning over.

To move to one side of the river, position the boat at a 45-degree angle to the current by pulling on the oar that’s opposite the side you want to reach (2 and 3). Then row backward with both oars; the boat will ferry toward shore.

228 KNOW YOUR CUTTHROAT TROUT

Though cutthroat trout are stocked in some areas of the country, they are, by and large, found only in their native range in the Rocky Mountains from Washington to parts of Arizona and New Mexico. They get their name from the distinct red or orange slash mark below their bottom jaw. Unlike brown and rainbow trout, cutthroat trout are broken up into several subspecies, with Yellowstone cutthroats and West Slope cutthroats being the most widespread and available. Stunningly beautiful, cutthroats inhabit everything from high mountain lakes to tiny mountain trickles to major river systems. They are willing eaters that will hit many small lures and natural baits, but they are arguably most prized by flyfishermen who prefer dry flies. Even when an insect hatch is not occurring, cutthroats are quick to rise to attractor patterns, such as a Stimulator.

229 MASTER 8 MINNOW TRICKS FOR TROUT

If you want to hook a trout with spots as big as dimes, you have to give it a meal, not a snack. Try these eight natural and artificial approaches to matching live minnows and hook the biggest fish in the pool.

1. LIVE MINNOW For a shore-fishing rig, thread a ¾-ounce slip sinker on the line above a swivel. On the bottom of the swivel, tie a 2-foot section of 6-pound-test fluorocarbon and a No. 4 hook. Add a 3- to 4-inch shiner hooked through the lips. Tie a rubber band in an overhand knot around the base of the rod. After casting, open the bail and tuck a loop of line beneath the rubber band. You can prop your rod in a forked stick, because the minnow isn’t strong enough to pull out the loop, and such little resistance won’t cause a trout to drop the bait as it runs with it. If snags litter the bottom, a shiner beneath a bobber is a better choice. Unlike warmwater fish that cruise just off the bottom, salmonids often swim through the mid-depths. Use the smallest float that will support the shiner and a single split shot. Hook the 3- to 4-inch minnow lightly through the back. To fish live shiners from a boat, replace the slip sinker with split shot. Drift the shore in an area where you can see the bottom on one side of the boat but not on the other.

2. SEWN MINNOW Push a No. 4 hook down through the nasal vent of the shiner and out the bottom of the throat. Then bring the hook down through the upper back all the way through the bottom of the fish. Slip the hook beneath the skin on its side and slowly tighten. The body should curve enough to make the bait turn and flip in the water (too much of a curve will make it spin). A very slow stop-and-start retrieve with the occasional twitch is often the best. Fish a sewn minnow in a stream’s deep, slow water. Cast upstream and roll the bait along the bottom; add whatever split shot you need to get it down. In a boat, drift and cast toward the shore, working from the shallow into the deep. When the bait reaches the dropoff, stop the retrieve, and let it flip and flop and glide to the bottom.

3. RIGGED MINNOW This setup retains the natural form of the baitfish and benefits from a quicker, more aggressive retrieve. It works particularly well once the water begins to warm. Keep the minnow alive as long as possible by hooking the single main No. 6 hook through the nasal vent and then the stinger hook through the skin just below and slightly behind the dorsal fin. Make the rig by tying the stinger hook to the tag end of a clinch knot in a 2-foot, 6-pound fluorocarbon leader. Two inches between the main hook and a size 12 to 14 treble is the proper distance. Cast above obstructions such as logjams and midstream boulders and twitch it back with the flow, working crosscurrent, pausing when the minnow is within striking distance of the hideout. Here is where the wriggle of a live shiner pays off.

4. CUTBAIT Cutbait can be still-fished on the bottom in pools, but an even better method is to hook it to a small jighead and drop it over a steep bank, jiggling and twitching it as it falls to the bottom, where you let it rest. Old-timers used a chub tail when there were so many creek chubs that they gobbled down the worm before the brook trout could get to it. The chub tail also tended to attract the biggest trout in a pool. The same strategy can be effective today. A good spot in the high water of spring is the first big pool of a feeder creek upstream from the main river.

5. STICKBAIT Minnow imitators seem best as the water starts to drop. They can run through very shallow water, and you can control the depth by the retrieval speed or model choice, which makes them ideal for river fishing. The smaller suspending lures are excellent big-river stickbaits because they hold at a depth rather than popping up to the surface once you stop reeling. Cast upstream and work the stickbait crosscurrent. You want your stickbait wobbling slowly when it gets to the target zone. Slow-water pockets surrounded by fast water are prime spots.

6. SPINNER The trick to catching big trout with spinners is to turn and face the flow, so the lure simulates a minnow moving along the bottom. Cast a spinner as far upstream as possible and reel just fast enough to keep ahead of the current. The long, heavy blade will tick off the rocks. Try to match the blade to the stain of the water—silver in clear, gold in tannin. As the waters recede, fish the transition line along the dropoff to the main river channel.

7. STREAMER The key to presenting a streamer is to work it crosswise to the current so that its full profile is visible to trout. Try to cast farther upstream than you think you should, giving the streamer time to sink. Use a floating line, which makes mending possible and lets you keep the streamer broadside. Match the material to the current—a bucktail in the fastest water, feathers in a moderate current, and a marabou in slow water.

8. SPOON Spoons give trout presentations they don’t see as often. Flutter along dropoffs in lakes, making the spoon imitate a baitfish trying to right itself. In early-season rivers, stand over deep pools and jig a Little Cleo along undercut banks. Later in spring, cast upstream and work back with the current, letting it flutter into the head of the pool.

230 STAY WITH YOUR TROUT RIVER THIS FALL

On moderate-gradient rivers, fall brings fewer hatches and smaller flies, mainly bluewing olives and midges. These insects demand small imitations, from size 18 down into the 20s, as far as you have the courage and eyesight to go. You need 6X to 8X tippet, and on glassy water with spooky fish, leaders of 12 feet or longer.

Trout won’t move far for tiny bugs; you must place your fly precisely in the feeding lane, a move best made with a downstream presentation. Station yourself upstream and slightly to one side of a rising fish. Aim about 3 feet above the fish and 3 feet beyond the far side of its feeding lane. Stop the rod tip high on the forward delivery so the line falls to the water with some slack. Quickly lift the rod and skate the fly toward you, directly into the drift line. Then drop the tip to give slack and float your fly right down the pipe.

Always check out bankside eddies, especially after a hatch. Drifting insects collect in these backwaters and circulate on conveyer-belt currents past hungry mouths—like you see in some sushi bars. Look closely for trout snouts dimpling the surface film. Don’t let the tiny rise forms fool you; the fish could be huge.

On many autumn rivers, browns moving upstream to spawn offer a shot at your best catch of the year, provided you change tactics. These fish must be provoked into striking, and it’s hard to pick a fight with a fly the size of an eyelash. You’ve got to invade their personal space, and nothing serves like a streamer. The key is to keep moving and cover some real estate.

Migrating browns stick primarily to the main channel, intermittently holding up in the slow current behind submerged obstructions and along deeper or rocky banks. Holding fish are scattered, and you can search the most water by casting upstream, parallel to the shoreline. Drop a streamer a few inches from the bank. Alternate dead-drifting the fly with twitches imparted by the rod tip, stripping in line to control the slack. Make five or six casts and move on. Browns in the channel are traveling upriver, and the best way to intercept them is by working down-stream, swinging a streamer. Begin at the head of a deeper run, off to one side of the channel. Cast across the current, and take an upstream mend to let the fly sink. Let your streamer swing on a tight line, following it with the rod tip until it’s directly below you. Take a couple of steps downstream and cast again, continuing through the run.

Bigger rivers hold the potential for double-digit fish (as in pounds, not inches), so don’t go lighter than 1X tippet. In fall, you’ll want every edge you can get.

231 PLAY TO A SURFACE-FEEDING TROUT

Watching trout rise from a vantage point on the riverbank will tell you where to cast. But by taking an even closer look and noting how those trout are rising, you can also glean exactly what type of fly to throw at them—especially when many different bugs are flying in the air. Here’s what to look for.

THE SIP A very subtle dimple appears in the water, and only the nose of the trout surfaces. This means the fish are either sipping midges or eating spent mayfly spinners.

THE SPLASH A sudden, explosive pop with some splash says that the trout are on moving targets, like skittering caddisflies. Tie on a caddis pattern and don’t be afraid to give it a twitch.

THE SLURP If you see more pronounced “beaks” on the surface, fish are dialed in on a hatch—likely mayfly duns. When the fish are really chopping, try a crippled fly variation.

THE BOIL When you see disturbed water but no faces—only a dorsal fin and maybe a tail—that’s the sign that fish are eating emergers before they reach the surface.

232 KNOW YOUR BROWN TROUT

While brown trout can be found in almost every state in the Union, many anglers don’t realize that this common species is not native to the United States. All brown trout, from the wild stream-bred fish in the American West to those grown in East Coast hatcheries, are descendants of either the Loch Levin strain from Scotland or those originally native to the forests of Germany. Smaller brown trout in streams, rivers, and lakes can be quite ravenous, readily attacking stickbaits, spinners, and a wide variety of flies. Jumbo browns in the 24- to 30-inch range, particularly those that live in rivers, are often considered “wise” and wary, holing up under gnarly logjams and in the deepest pools, where they feed only once or twice a day. Browns this size will eat anything from a mouse swimming across the surface to a trout half their own body length.

233 SWIM A SPRING

If you’re fishing still water, use a thermometer to locate springs, which can produce water 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the lake. Submerged weedbeds are thicker in these areas, and trout will cruise them while feeding on aquatic insects. On a 20-foot leader, tie a light soft hackle on a dropper on top, a lightly weighted nymph on a dropper in the center, and a heavy nymph at the end. Make an open-loop cast parallel to the weedbed and swim the flies toward you very slowly. Gently twitching the rod tip from side to side, pausing and repeating, will trigger strikes from following fish.

234 FISH HEADWATERS FOR AUTUMN TROUT

On higher-gradient, boulder-strewn headwaters, the trout are concentrated into fewer spots by a flow volume at or near the annual minimum and warm, clear water that’s low in dissolved oxygen. On summerlike days, head straight to the pockets. The turbulence produced by in-stream boulders gives the trout fresh air in the water. Fish the froth with a high-floating, buggy dry: a size 14 or 16 deer hair caddis or small Stimulator. Approach the water directly downstream and use short, precise drifts to cover the riffled apron of water behind the boulders, as well as the bubble lines and the foamy water alongside chutes.

When autumn days feel more like winter, go subsurface. Nymphs such as Hare’s Ears, Pheasant Tails, and Princes—beadhead or weighted—do well. In fall’s shrunken currents, fishing without a strike indicator gives more precise control in the narrow drift lanes. But this requires that you get close to the fish. Look for pocket-water seams, slots, and current tongues that run knee-deep or better. The surface chop will help mask your approach, but keep low, move slowly, and use the cover of boulders and brush for concealment.

Rig a pair of nymphs about 8 to 12 inches apart and position yourself about a rod length across from the target water and slightly downstream. Flip the flies upstream at a 45-degree angle and raise the rod to remove any slack. With the rod tip high, lead the flies downstream on a barely taut line. Focus on the leader where it enters the water; if it pauses or twitches, strike instantly.

Years ago on an autumn trip, an expert fly angler gave me a bit of advice: Instead of concentrating on the head and gut of the pool—prime summer water—look to the edges and tailouts. Aquatic forage is skimpy in fall, and the trout rely more on insects that fall to the water from surrounding vegetation. Fish will feed along shady banks or take up stations at the tail, where the narrowing current funnels food to them. A flying-ant or beetle imitation is a good choice, but on these smooth, clear waters, stealth means more than pattern. Prespawn brook trout will congregate in these same tailouts and attack a streamer swung down and across in front of them. In this shallow water, you’re best off with an unweighted feather-wing or bucktail pattern.

235 DROP RIGHT IN

Fishing two flies—an old method that has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years—lets you turn fluctuating water levels into an opportunity. The following fly rigs allow you to adjust your presentation to any level. With both rigs, strikes often come at the end of the drift. Drag causes the dropper to rise, simulating a hatching nymph and triggering a strike. When you’re about to give up on the drift, be ready.

HIGH-WATER RIG In more torrential waters, attach an indicator at the butt of a 3X leader. Tie a size 8 weighted stonefly nymph to the end of the leader. On the hook bend, tie 2 feet of 4X tippet with an improved clinch knot. At the terminal end, tie on a size 12 Hare’s Ear or a size 12 Sparkle Pupa. The leader should be 1 to 2 feet longer than the water is deep, depending on the current speed. Then, cast upstream and present the nymphs drag-free. When a fish takes, the indicator will twitch, lurch, or sometimes just stop.

LOW-WATER RIG After water levels fall, begin with a size 12 elk hair caddis. On the hook bend, tie 3 feet of 4X or 5X tippet with an improved clinch knot. At the other end, tie on a size 14 Caddis Pupa or a size 16 or 18 Beadhead Pheasant Tail. Cast upstream and present the flies drag-free. Set the hook if the dry fly twitches or disappears.

236 CUT SOME SLACK

In early spring, you may encounter high, murky water. In these conditions, big trout will often hole up in slow-spiraling eddies. Contrary to popular belief, these fish will frequently face downstream in the slack water created behind boulders and other current-breaking structure. Nymphs that incorporate some purple material or have flashbacks are highly visible to trout in dirty water. Fish them on a 10-foot leader, starting at the outside edge of the eddy and gradually working toward its center. Cast upstream and allow the fly to dead-drift. Take up the slack as the fly drifts back toward you, watching the line for subtle bumps and stops.

237 FISH WITH YOUR EYES

“How in the world did you see that?” is a refrain fishing guides often hear. Spotting fish before you cast can dramatically increase your odds of hooking up. It doesn’t require Superman vision or a carrot-rich diet to start sighting fish. Follow these rules, and you’ll see your way to instant gratification on the water.

ZERO IN Instead of searching the entire area, focus on one small zone at a time. Tunnel vision is actually a good thing when you’re contemplating where to place that next cast.

SPOT INCONSISTENCIES Whether you’re seeking out bedded bass or trout holding in a run, identify unusual marks in the water. Color shades, shadows, and motion can tip you off to a lurking fish.

WATCH THE SURFACE The motion of schooling fish reveals their locations. If a noticeable disturbance occurs as you stare at a smooth water surface, keep looking. Flashes of tails often follow in spots where you first see ripples.

GET THE EYES Polarized sunglasses are a must. You can’t see fish without them. Try to position yourself so the sun makes a spotlight on the water, and wear the right color lenses for the conditions.

DISCARD DISTRACTIONS The sooner an angler can weed out distractions like wind, ripples, and bird shadows, the sooner he can identify the position of feeding fish.

LOOK AHEAD Any fish that are upstream of you facing the current can’t see you, so it’s important to keep an eye ahead of you if you don’t see any fish closer to your feet.

SEARCH FOR THE SUBTLE Look for reflections, shapes, and shadows that might reveal a fish. A tail or a nose can be all you need to identify a target.

LOOK THROUGH Practice looking through the water column—not fixing your gaze on the surface or the bottom. Doing this lets you observe motion and subtle color changes that pinpoint fish.

238 HOOK MORE RISING FISH

Instead of setting the hook when you see a fish take your fly, wait until you see your leader move. Fish often roll to sink a fly and then take it on a second pass. Giving yourself that extra moment will allow you to confirm that you have a solid hit and not a passing swipe.

239 LIFT AND LOWER

Never overlook shallow runs between deep runs in early spring for big trout, especially when water levels come up and increase the depth of those shallow runs a bit. In these spots, try an in-line double fly rig, consisting of a Finnish raccoon shad streamer 18 inches below a size 10 Beadhead Pheasant Tail nymph. Cast upstream (1) and allow the flies to sink but don’t strip the line. Instead, gently lift the rod (2) and then lower it (3) to give the flies an enticing crippled action. Trout often strike just as the flies begin to rise in the water column or immediately after they begin to fall.

240 DO IT RIGHT ON THE RIVER

One big difference between rowing a boat on a lake and operating a boat on the river is that your oars are your steering wheel and brakes and not your means of locomotion. The good oarsman is constantly looking ahead for rocks and rapids—and good fishing spots—and then picking the best navigation line. You must be able to slip around a midstream boulder or position yourself for casts to a cutbank by making small, subtle strokes many yards before you get close to the boulder or the bank.

STEER CLEAR The upstream boat is always responsible for steering clear of downstream boats. As you approach rapids, hold your position and make sure the downstream boat is clear before plunging through them. If you want to pass a boat, do so in calmer water, and never pass between the boat and the bank anglers are fishing. If you’re the downstream boat, never put your craft in a spot (such as the bottom of a narrow rapid) that will make navigating the water more dangerous for others. To steer around obstacles, point the bow directly at the object (so you can get a fix on it) and then angle the boat in a different direction by backstroking with one oar.

CAST CORRECTLY Simultaneous casts from a drift boat inevitably tangle. Therefore, the stern angler must defer to the bow angler, who casts first. The stern angler times and places his casts around those of the bow angler. Use landmarks on the river to direct your casts. On windy days, fish the bank where the prevailing breeze is behind you to make casting easier and safer. Having just one angler cast at a time will prevent wind tangles. In very strong wind, be safe—beach the boat and fish from shore until it dies down.

241 PADDLE TROLL

Why waste all that paddle power simply getting from point A to point B? You can catch a world of fish by trolling streamers and plugs behind canoes. A canoe’s typical pace seems designed for imitating baitfish, and the inconsistent rate of speed keeps your lure moving up and down in the water column—a strike-inducing action.

To troll a floating or floater-diver plug, attach a few split shots to the line 2 feet ahead of the lure. Or work a shallow-running crankbait over beds of submerged vegetation. Run 100 to 150 feet of line behind the canoe and vary your paddle strokes to lend a stop-and-start action to the plug.

Trolling streamers and wet flies for rainbow and brook trout is a classic lake tactic, but you can also apply it to rivers. Use an intermediate or sinking fly line to put a Muddler Minnow or Woolly Bugger down deep. Trolling through long, apparently unproductive stretches will ensure that you leave no structure unfished. Paddle bank to bank and back again to find where fish are holding.

242 EXECUTE A POWER PIVOT

At times you’ll have to turn a boat abruptly—you may have to dodge a rock you didn’t see, or maybe your buddy hung his fly on the bank. A scissor stroke will alter your course quickly. To cock the bow sharply to the right, pull back on the right hand and push forward on the left. To go left, reverse the moves. The side you pull back on is the direction the bow will turn.

243 RIDE THE CURRENT IN A CANOE

Often the fishiest place in a river is along a current seam or eddy line where the flow is broken by a boulder or island and reverses course. Holding the boat in such spots is tricky, but fish stack up in the slack and wait for prey to wash down the swifter water. Work it right, and you can fill the cooler.

FISH AN EDDY Paddle past the obstacle in the current and cross the eddy line two boat lengths beyond it. Now turn upstream. This puts you in a good position to fish the head of the slack. Cast into the slack just below the blockage, and work the current seams diligently. You can now also paddle upstream to the head of the eddy and make down-and-across casts. Work your lures or flies downstream to the tail of the eddy and make sure they swing across the current.

HANG TIGHT To stay along a current seam or eddy, rig a combination quick-release system so you can either toss the anchor overboard or tie off to an overhanging tree. Secure a 75-foot length of 3/8-inch anchor line to the canoe bow. Tie the running end to a carabiner and clip it to an anchor. You’ll be able to unclip the anchor, slip the line around a midstream branch, and fasten the carabiner to the line itself for a no-fuss hold. Make anchoring even easier by screwing an eyebolt or eye strap to your bow deck. Run the anchor line through the eye and tie it off at your seat. Now you can weigh anchor from there, with no more leaning over the end of the canoe.

244 DRIFT AND DREDGE

A drifting canoe is a superb platform from which to dredge deep water. Cast straight across the current for the deepest drifts or slightly downstream so the lure swings across the current and then turns toward the boat. Fish often strike right when it changes direction. To slow your drift, turn the canoe around and float backward. Take turns fishing, because the stern paddler has to control the speed with occasional paddle strokes. This is a great way to fish long pools. Another option is to rig a “drag chain.” Attach a length of heavy chain to your anchor rope—remove the anchor first, of course—and drag it behind the boat. Covering the chain with a bicycle-tire inner tube dampens the noise from any contact with the hull and bottom.

245 KNOW YOUR FLATHEAD CATFISH

When you hear about a noodler wiggling his fingers in a submerged rockpile and ripping out a 100-pound catfish with his bare hands, that catfish is most likely a flathead. Native to the lakes and rivers stretching north and south from Mexico to North Dakota and east and west from the Appalachian Mountains to Arizona, flatheads are voracious predators and highly territorial. For those not brave enough to let a big flathead clamp down on their extremities, live bluegills or shad are preferred baits, and nighttime is often the right time to connect with these brutes. Flatheads thrive in murky, muddy water—look for them in soft-bottom channels, around rocky ledges, and in backwater holes and eddies that create a good spot for a big cat to lie in ambush, waiting for its next meal.

246 SNAG THE BEST CASTING POSITION

Fish in large, swift rivers typically hold close to the bank, so try to set a course that keeps you 30 to 60 feet off the shoreline. It’s the oarsman’s job to position a drift boat or raft so anglers in both the bow and stern can cast freely to the bank. This can be accomplished by keeping the bow of the boat at a 45-degree angle away from the bank, toward the middle of the river (A). The angler in the bow will have the first, but farther, cast. The stern fisherman will also have a clear range of fire. If the bow is angled toward shore (B), the stern angler won’t have a clear casting angle downstream.

247 CATCH SMALLMOUTHS WITH THE BAIT THAT BITES BACK

There’s nothing new about hellgrammites. These giant aquatic larvae are still expensive. Their pincers still draw blood. But anglers gladly put up with all of that because when it comes to hellgrammites, they still catch more moving-water smallmouths than any other bait today. Anglers who put serious stock in ’mites can save cash by seining their own in late spring and summer using a piece of door screening stretched between two posts. One angler lifts rocks, while the other stands downstream with the makeshift seine to collect hellgrammites that flush downcurrent. Once you have your bait, you can make it last with proper hooking. Slide the point of a longshank hook just once under the collar, which is the first body segment behind the head. Hellgrammites are hardy, and hooked this way, the bait should slide up the line when a bass attacks, allowing you to reseat the hellgrammite and cast out again.

248 GET THE DROP ON BASS

Done right, a drop-shot rig can be irresistible to even picky fish. The key is the rate at which it sinks; soft-plastic bait should fall flat through the water, not dive nose-down. To accomplish this, try a 1/32-ounce split shot. During the spawn and postspawn, shorten the space between the bait and the tag end, where you hang the split shot, to 4 inches or less (A). By cutting the tag end down, you minimize the problem of tangling around structures. Bass will often attack the soft plastic as it falls through the water. If the bait hits the bottom without a strike, shake the rod to give the worm some enticing action. After a few shakes, gently retrieve the bait and then cast to your next target.

Concentrate on tempting shallow-water largemouths around docks, near deadfall, and adjacent to vegetation (B). Also, try to intercept postspawn lunkers on shelves adjacent to flats (C).

Try fishing a 7-foot medium-action spinning rod and a spinning reel spooled with green fluorocarbon line. In open water, you’ll want to use 6-pound line; near structure, use an 8- to 10-pound line. For the rig, use a 7-inch worm in triple margarita, a 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG hook, and one 1/32-ounce split shot. Work at close range, pitching around tree limbs, docks, and so forth.

Because this rig requires light line, target a spot close to where you think bass are and entice them away from cover. The natural action of the gliding drop-shot bait will make this possible.

249 KNOW YOUR SMALLMOUTH BASS

Much like largemouth bass, smallmouths can be fooled into eating anything from live bait to flies to just about every style of artificial lure available. What sets them apart, however, is their scrappy nature. Smallmouths are known for the bulldog fighting abilities that trump their largemouth cousins. Hook a smallmouth in a deep lake, and it’s going to make every effort to swim to the bottom and snap your line. Hook one in a swift, rocky river, and it will try to find a boulder to wrap around and bust you off. Though these fish can be found throughout the United States in many types of water, their preferred habitat includes a combination of cooler water, rocky structure, and current, making them much more prevalent in rivers, particularly in the Northeast and Northwest, than largemouth bass.

250 PULL BASS FROM BENEATH THE BOARDS

Bass like docks because they provide shelter and a steady supply of bluegills, shad, and other baitfish. But how largemouths relate to docks in spring depends on the spawning stage. This time of year, on any given lake, you’ll find bass in all three modes: prespawn, spawn, and postspawn. Here’s how to fish docks no matter which stage the fish are in.

PRESPAWN Concentrate on docks off spawning areas where there is quick access to deeper water, such as those near main-lake points, secondary points, and steep banks. Work a shad-colored suspending jerkbait parallel to the outer edges of the docks, where prespawn bass tend to hold (1). Let the bait hover for 3 seconds or more between twitches (2). Another excellent choice is a ¼- to ½-ounce black-and-blue skirted jig matched with a pork-rind trailer. Swim it a few feet beneath the surface along the dock’s edges to imitate a bluegill. Or hop it along the bottom to mimic a crayfish.

SPAWN Spawning bass will gravitate to docks in shallow water, typically to the pilings at the nearshore end (1). They also frequently spawn directly beneath the walkway connecting floating docks to shore. Here, use a 4- or 4½-inch Texas-rigged tube, and peg a 3/16- to 5/16-ounce bullet sinker against the lure to keep it from sliding up the line. Flipping, pitching, or skipping the lure far under the dock will produce the most strikes (2). Though it takes time to master the flip, the cleaner the presentation, the more strikes you’ll draw, as the first drop often counts most.

POSTSPAWN As the spawning period wanes, you can find excellent topwater action around docks. Before heading back toward deep water, postspawn bass may continue to hold near shallow docks for a few days. They tend to suspend under a dock’s outside edges (1) and will nail a topwater popper worked past them (2). The window of opportunity can be relatively short for postspawn stragglers, as their willingness to stay will depend largely on the amount of forage species around the dock. However, these bass can offer some of the most exciting fishing of the year.

251 SHAKE THE BED FOR GIANT BASS

Look for the first big breeders to spawn in coves, bays, and boat canals. Wear polarized sunglasses to inspect the areas near boat docks, flooded bushes, blowdowns, and grass edges. Any of these could reveal a giant bass. Keep searching until you find one. Remember that it often takes a big bait to rouse a bedded superbass. An exceptionally lifelike swimbait is the ticket. It can mimic a bream feeding on bass eggs. Cast beyond the bass and swim the lure into the bed, working it there until you find the spot that aggravates the fish. Then twitch your rod tip on a slack line to make the bait bounce up and down like a feeding bluegill. Hold on tight.

252 SEND JERKBAITS DOWN DEEP

Big prespawn bass of all sizes stack up on main-lake points at the mouths of spawning bays, as well as secondary points within them. These are often the last stops bass make before they hit the shallows to breed. The key here is to bypass the smaller fish available within 3 feet of the surface and specifically target bigger females in 5 to 8 feet of water.

A long-billed, suspending jerkbait in clown color gets down to where the monsters hold. Cast over the point and make the jerkbait dive quickly with two or three sideways pulls. Then let it suspend. To tempt the heftiest bass, the secret is to keep the bait still for up to 30 seconds, twitch it once, and rest it again. Patience pays impressive dividends here.

253 SEND FROGS UNDER COVER

When water in the shallows climbs to over 63 degrees, lunkers gravitate to the heaviest cover available in a spawning flat, including bulrushes, windfalls, cattails, brushpiles, and docks. To deal with this, you need a snagless frog lure. Black is always good, but try white and the basic frog pattern as well.

Skip the frog into dense cover, let it rest briefly, twitch it once, and let it rest again. Then work it back with quick twitches and short pauses. Use a 7-foot medium-heavy baitcasting rod with 50-pound braided line, and set the hook hard when a big bass boils.

254 RIP A RATTLEBAIT

The rule of thumb for prespawn cold-water bass is to fish slow. But like every other rule, this one is made to be broken, which you can do with a lipless rattling crankbait. Concentrate on points and submerged grassbeds, as well as 45-degree banks and flats adjacent to creek-channel bends. Early in the season, try crayfish patterns, particularly those that are bright orange-and-red in stained water and green-and-brown in clear water. According to bass pro Kevin VanDam, Strike King’s ½-ounce Diamond Shad runs deeper than other lipless rattlers, which is an advantage in cold water during the prespawn. With 8-pound monofilament, you’re able to run an unmodified lure down about 7 feet. Rather than using a deliberate stop-and-go retrieve, which many anglers employ now, try keeping the nose of your bait quickly tapdancing over the bottom. This faster retrieve covers more water, increasing the odds of running the rattler through the strike zone of a bass. In the cold water, the fish’s strike zone is going to be significantly smaller. If you get the lure in its face, the bass is going to bite.

255 JIG A WORM

Tournament pros like a plastic worm on a jighead—but not just any worm or jighead. The worm, 4 to 6 inches, must be very skinny. The round-ball jighead usually weighs 1/8 or ¼ ounce and has a size 1/0 hook. This setup is used with 8-pound-test line in shallow or deep water, depending on the cover. Let it sink but keep it off the bottom. Once the lure is in the zone, give it a shake, and the skinny worm will respond with a shimmy. Effective depths range from 10 to 30 feet at deep points, bluffs, and boathouses.

256 USE MONSTER TUBES IN THE SHALLOWS

Once they begin spawning, the trick to catching giant bass is spotting them on or near their beds. Wear polarized sun-glasses and slowly cruise sheltered shallows, looking for nests on firm bottoms such as sand or gravel—especially along sunny banks and near stumps, docks, windfalls, or other cover.

Go with a 6-inch tube in pearl, rigged Texas-style with a 6/0 worm hook and ¼-ounce bullet sinker. This oversize tube rouses extra-large fish. Slip to within casting range of the bed, and when that big female faces away, pitch the tube softly into her nest with a stout flipping rod matched with 20-pound fluorocarbon line. Lightly twitch the bait in place. Experiment until you find an action that aggravates the bass. Then keep it up until she inhales it.

257 CATCH FISH IN THE PROP WASH

When you’re trolling, always drag one lure in the prop wash no more than two boat lengths behind your motor. Game-fish are attracted to the propeller turbulence because it often disorients them, making them vulnerable. The wake also imparts an enticing action to lures and flies that are trolled in the bubbles. You’ll be surprised at how often the “prop-wash lure” will be the high scorer.

258 LEARN TO SWIM

When largemouths done with spawning stack up near flooded bushes in coves and in grassbeds on tributary points, it’s time to swim—your baits, that is. The bass are keying on active forage, especially small bluegills, and using a swimming presentation with a jig, creature bait, or lizard can be a fast way to add serious weight to your stringer.

TACKLE When the sun is high, target the shade around flooded bushes with a 6½-foot medium-heavy spinning rod and 10-pound monofilament. For fishing in grassbeds, go with a 7-foot medium-heavy baitcasting outfit with 20-pound line; this will help you haul out bass that bury themselves in the weeds when hooked.

LURES Top lures for swimming include a watermelon, white, or black lizard; a watermelon or black creature bait; or a ¼- to ½-ounce black-and-blue jig. Rig both the lizard and creature Texas-style with a 3/16- to ¼-ounce tungsten sinker and an extra-wide-gap hook and add a V-chunk or grub trailer to the jig.

TECHNIQUE Cast into grassbeds or pitch your lure underhand beneath flooded bushes. Engage the reel before the bait sinks all the way to the bottom, lift the rod to about 11 o’clock, and retrieve steadily—fast enough to keep the lure off the bottom or above the grass. It’s critical to determine what type of retrieve the fish want. Keep the rod rock-steady and adjust the retrieve speed with the reel. If this fails, you can try twitching the rod tip as you continue to reel. The most important thing to remember is that unlike most retrieves with a jig or soft-plastic bait, here you want to keep that bait moving.

259 SKIP A JIG IN TIGHT QUARTERS

Underneath docks and overhanging trees are likely spots to find unpressured, hard-to-reach bass. The best way to introduce those bass to your lures is with this skipping trick.

Holding the rod sidearm, start your cast with the rod pointed at the water (not at your target). Moving to the left (right if you’re a lefty), rotate your arms and the rod above your head and back down your right side. You’re making a complete, vertical circle with the rod and accelerating as you complete the cast. Finish with the rod tip pointed directly at your target as the line shoots off the reel. So, if you’re aiming at a spot tucked behind two dock posts, your eyes and your rod tip should be pointed right between the posts as you accelerate and stop the cast. It’s harder to skip at short range than at a distance of 30 feet, where momentum works in your favor. Don’t overpower the cast. Your accuracy and the distance of the skip, as in skipping stones, are all about angles—and that comes with practice.

You’ll want to focus on shady spots that are tight to the bank. Overhanging limbs make good target zones, but working underneath docks is best. Look for signs of recent spawning activity in the near vicinity—barren patches of sand and gravel in water 4 feet deep or shallower. Then concentrate your casts in areas from the edge of the dock to bulkheads or natural shoreline.

Try casting a medium-heavy rod with a baitcast reel and 17- to 20-pound fluorocarbon line. For a lure, try a 3/8-ounce jig in green pumpkin, brown, or black. Modify jigs for “skipping season” by trimming the skirt.

260 KEEP ON THE GRASS

Although smallmouth bass often hang out near rocks and gravel, they also feel at home in aquatic vegetation, especially right after the spawn, when smallies gravitate to prey-rich weedbeds to fatten up before migrating to their summer haunts. Look for productive greenery on points, humps, and the edges of dropoffs in 3 to 8 feet of water (or a little deeper in clear lakes). The bass will relate to the outside edges of the weeds, as well as the lanes and pockets that make ideal ambush zones. Use any of these tactics to pluck bass from the grass.

DANCE A TOPWATER BAIT, a proven winner for this kind of fishing. Make long casts with a 7-foot medium-heavy baitcasting rod, a high-speed reel, and 15-pound line. Work that popper or spook all the way back to the boat and steel yourself for some explosive strikes.

BURN A SPINNERBAIT over the grass to trigger jolting reflex strikes. Use the same baitcasting outfit as above and tie on a ½- to ¾-ounce chartreuse spinnerbait rigged with slightly undersize double-willow chartreuse blades, which will keep the bait from rolling.

SWIM A TUBE on 10-pound line with a 6½-foot medium-heavy spinning outfit. Slide a 1/16-ounce, exposed-hook jig into a 3½-inch root beer–green flake tube. Cast out and work the bait in very slowly. Done right, the lure seems to almost hover over the grass and coaxes bites even from tentative bass.

WORK A JERKBAIT with an aggressive jerk-jerk-pause-jerk-pause cadence. Use 10-pound line with a 6-foot medium-action baitcasting or spinning rod, which will mitigate the fatigue you can feel in your wrists when you fish jerkbaits with heavier tackle. Strikes typically come during the brief pauses, and there won’t be any guesswork about them.

261 TAKE IT TO THE SLOPES

Steep structures allow sluggish early-spring bass to make major depth changes without swimming long distances. It’s a simple matter of conserving energy. A bass on a main-lake flat, for example, might have to swim 200 yards or more to go from 3 to 12 feet of water, but on a vertical rock bluff that fish can reach the same depths by swimming only 9 feet.

ROCK BLUFFS These structures consistently produce prespawn bass, and because the rock walls are typically apparent above the shoreline, they’re easy to locate. Look for bass to suspend along the face of bluffs, where they’ll make quick vertical movements to pick off baitfish.

STANDING TIMBER In spring, target emergent timber that lines the edges of major creek runs, rather than submerged timber along very deep river channels. Bass will suspend around the trees, warming themselves in the sun, and then move into the shade to ambush prey.

SUBMERGED HUMPS Avoid the tops of these structures in spring. Instead, use your graph to pinpoint the side or end with the sharpest slope. That’s where the biggest bass will hang out. Drop a jig or a drop-shot-rigged worm almost straight down to the fish.

RETAINING WALLS In lakes that have a good deal of residential development on or around them, wood pilings or concrete blocks often line the banks to prevent erosion. Bass readily cruise these vertical walls looking for shad and crayfish. When they’re not feeding, they’ll drop back and suspend off the structure.

45-DEGREE BANKS Technically, these banks are far from vertical, but they slope into deep water fairly quickly and often have small, steep ledges on them that hold bass. A suspending jerkbait will work here and in all of these places if the water is clear; fish it with slow twitches.

FLAT DIVERS These will descend to 8 feet and have nearly neutral buoyancy. They’re ideal for cranking banks that slope into the water at a 45-degree angle. Target pea gravel to basketball-size chunk rock at the mouths of spawning coves. Tick the bottom with a slow to medium-slow retrieve. Go with a shad or crawfish color.

262 CAST THE CRANKS OF SPRING

When it comes to hooking coldwater bass in early spring, you can’t beat crankbaits. These lures swim with a tight wiggle that appeals to lethargic bass in water below 50 degrees. Here are four varieties to keep in your tackle box.

COFFIN BILLS A crankbait with a coffin bill fends off snags. A ½-ounce lure is heavy enough to cast accurately to windfalls and other snaggy cover. Crank slowly as it comes through the structure, and pause every time it pops over a limb.

LIPLESS RATTLERS Most of these sinking, hard-vibrating crank-baits have noisy rattles. Slow-roll them over submerged grass 5 to 10 feet deep. Most strikes are going to happen after you snap the rattler through a strand of the grass.

FLAT DIVERS These will descend to 8 feet and have nearly neutral buoyancy. They’re ideal for cranking banks that slope into the water at a 45-degree angle. Target pea gravel to basketball-size chunk rock at the mouths of spawning coves. Tick the bottom with a slow to medium-slow retrieve. Go with a shad or crawfish color.

THIN MINNOWS The subtle roll and twitch tempts bites when sluggish bass shun more active lures. Run it over 45-degree-angle banks and secondary points. Also, slowly retrieve the lure parallel to each side of a dock to pull bass from beneath. An occasional stop-and-go cadence can make a huge difference.

263 CATCH A BIG, FAT PERCH

Schools of big yellow perch hug the bottom in open water, usually between 10 and 30 feet deep. Use a lake map and electronics to locate gradually sloping bottoms and mid-lake reefs with scattered submerged weeds.

With your boat positioned perpendicular to the wind, cast a baited perch rig off the bow and stern. Make repeated drifts with the wind, slowly dragging the rig along the bottom through likely areas, until you get a hit. When you catch one, toss out a marker buoy. Then circle upwind within easy casting range and drop anchor. By staying upwind of the school, you will be able to readjust your position by shortening or lengthening your anchor rope. It also allows for easier bite detection.

If you’re fishing bait, toss a baited tandem rig past the buoy, let it sink to the bottom, and drag the rig slowly over bottom structure and through weeds. Keep a fingertip on your line, plus an eye on your rod tip. If you’re fishing with a jig, cast out and let the lure sink to the bottom first. Then jig, but don’t pop it up and down like a yo-yo. Instead, slowly lift it off the bottom and drop it back down.

Most fishermen going after big perch choose a 5- to 6½-foot ultralight spinning outfit. For casting jigs, go with a medium-action graphite rod. If you’ll be tossing perch rigs, a slow graphite or even fiberglass stick is better. Either way, a sensitive or soft rod tip is a must for detecting subtle bites. You want light, low-stretch line. A quality 4-pound mono is standard, but many big-perch fanatics use a superbraid matched with a fluorocarbon leader.

THE MORNING AFTER If you found stumps holding bass during the prespawn, try them again once the fish leave their beds.

TRANSITION As bass move into tributaries on their way to spawning grounds, they often pause to rest and feed. Bump stumps with a jig-and-pig, a crawdad-colored crankbait, or a 6-inch junebug-colored lizard Carolina-rigged.

STAGECRAFT Before the spawn, bass stage in stump rows along the edges of shallow channels high in the arms of tributaries. Tap a jig-and-pig or the lip of a fat, shallow-running crankbait in a crawdad color off the tops.

BEDTIME In old reservoirs, where upstream shallows are covered in soft silt, spawning bass will lay their eggs on the hard surfaces of stumps and their roots. Flip a black neon and junebug–colored Texas-rigged tube or lizard on top of a stump and let it lie there, twitching. Don’t retrieve too quickly.

264 KNOCK ON WOOD

Stumps may be a great place to lose lures, but they’re also baitfish magnets, and hungry bass traveling to and from spawning beds pause beneath their gnarled roots to rest and feed. Don’t cast randomly at any stump you stumble across. Pay attention to the spawning cycle to hit the stumps most likely to hold big bass.

TRANSITION As bass move into tributaries on their way to spawning grounds, they often pause to rest and feed. Bump stumps with a jig-and-pig, a crawdad-colored crankbait, or a 6-inch junebug-colored lizard Carolina-rigged.

STAGECRAFT Before the spawn, bass stage in stump rows along the edges of shallow channels high in the arms of tributaries. Tap a jig-and-pig or the lip of a fat, shallow-running crankbait in a crawdad color off the tops.

BEDTIME In old reservoirs, where upstream shallows are covered in soft silt, spawning bass will lay their eggs on the hard surfaces of stumps and their roots. Flip a black neon and junebug–colored Texas-rigged tube or lizard on top of a stump and let it lie there, twitching. Don’t retrieve too quickly.

THE MORNING AFTER If you found stumps holding bass during the prespawn, try them again once the fish leave their beds.

PRESPAWN Stumps along channel bends and junctures in the main lake hold bass before they start for spawning areas. Probe with a 1/2-ounce black-and-blue jig-and-pig. In clear water, hover a jerkbait or slowly retrieve a subtle-action crankbait over them.

STUMPING FOR STRIKES A good way to attract bass that may not otherwise see your bait is to cast close enough to a stump for your lure or sinker to bang against it. If you’re using a heavy jig or plastic bait, don’t retrieve it too quickly.

265 THROW A ONE-TWO BASS PUNCH

Bass strike but miss lures for a variety of reasons. But at least a miss tells you where the fish are and that they’re in an aggressive mood. The key to catching fish that miss is using a totally different lure to draw an impulse strike.

SPINNERBAIT TO LIGHT TUBE JIG Flashing blades and vibration attracted the bass. Follow with a tube that sinks slowly. Snap the tube with your rod to create multiple falls, mimicking injured forage.

FLOATING FROG TO SMALL JIG Bass often miss frogs they only hear amid heavy vegetation. A finesse jig falls slowly and is easy to see. In more open water, slight twitching makes the jig deadly.

TOPWATER BUZZBAIT TO PLASTIC WORM The buzzbait triggered the surface strike. Follow with a worm rigged weightless and wacky-style so it produces a vibrating fall that hovers in front of the fish.

266 ENJOY A CAROLINA EGG ROLL

Here’s a pro tactic to tweak a classic rig to swim baits across rocky bottoms. Fish using a big, soft-plastic bait on a Carolina rig. Use a 7-foot, heavy-action casting rod, a low-profile baitcasting reel, and 20-pound fluorocarbon line, with a full 1-ounce egg sinker (A). Shape trumps mass, as the fast-falling, easy-rolling character of the egg results in a freer-swimming bait—and more hookups. Look for points and rocky ledges—any marker in a migration path that connects deep and shallow water. You’ll also find some current (B) in this area and a fairly clean, rocky bottom. Cast all around the boat, feeling your way as you retrieve the bait and the sinker rolls over the structure. When you feel resistance, set the hook. Once you start consistently hooking up at a certain depth and find the right speed to move your bait, stick to that pattern.

267 KNOW YOUR YELLOW PERCH

With the exception of the Great Lakes, where recreational anglers and large charter boats that hold more than 30 people target perch year-round, open-water fishing is not the primary was people around America catch perch; ice fishing for perch is much more popular. Yellow perch remain highly aggressive all winter long and are often easier to coax into feeding during the cold season than species such as crappies and bluegills. The short rods necessary for ice fishing are also perfectly suited to getting the maximum fight out of a scrappy perch. Tiny soft-plastic jigs, little spoons, and small live minnows or maggots are popular baits and lures for targeting perch through the ice. In open water, these fish will take a swing at a number of lures, including small in-line spinners and small, slender stickbaits.

268 LEARN DEEP SECRETS

Two places where you can consistently find active bass when it’s hot out are long, sloping points that reach far offshore before dropping off and the lips of creek and river channels, called ledges, especially on outside bends and channel junctures.

Start by idling around the main lake while viewing your depthfinder. Normally, you’ll see suspended fish, which are typically inactive at a certain depth, often about 14 feet or so. Remember that number once you determine it, because that’s where you’re going to find feeding bass on points and ledges throughout the lake.

DEEP CRANKING Comb the points and ledges with a ½- to 1-ounce, long-billed, shad-pattern crankbait that will run deep enough to tap the bottom at the depth you’re fishing. Use a 7-foot medium-action baitcasting rod and 8-pound line, and make long casts to get your bait to its maximum depth. These crankbaits work best at 18 feet or less.

CAROLINA RIGGING For fishing in waters down to 30 feet or more, it’s hard to beat a Carolina rig, which casts far, sinks fast, and stays in the strike zone throughout the retrieve. Casting these rigs calls for a heavy-action 7- to 7½-foot baitcasting outfit. Use a 4-inch french-fry worm Texas-rigged on a 3/0 worm hook. Watermelon and pumpkinseed are proven summertime colors.

HEAVY JIGGING If you’re after big bass in particular, cast a ½- to ¾-ounce weedless jig dressed with a plastic craw, using a 7-foot medium-heavy baitcasting rod and 12-pound line. Go with crawdad colors in clear water and black-and-blue in stained water. After casting, jump the jig off the bottom with long sweeps of the rod and then let it swing back to the bottom while you hold the rod tip high. This bait isn’t apt to catch as many fish as the subtler Carolina rig, but the jig’s big profile will trigger strikes from some of the lake’s heftiest bass.

269 GET THE LEAD OUT FOR WALLEYES

The easiest, least expensive way to run lures deep is spooling your reels with single-strand lead wire inside a braided nylon covering. Pound-tests range from 12 up to 45. The line is marked by a color change every 10 yards, which makes it easy to tell roughly how much line is extended. In general, each color in the water adds 5 to 8 feet of trolling depth (depending on speed). A 100-yard spool of lead-core line costs very little, and most wide-spool baitcasting reels hold five or six lead-core colors plus some monofilament backing. You can do this anywhere, with any kind of powered boat. You can even troll lead-core from a kayak or canoe, but it’s a workout.

In summer, lake walleyes either hold near deep structure or cruise as scattered schools across deep flats and basins while following baitfish. To get these fish, use a loop-to-loop connection to add about 10 feet of 10-pound-test clear mono or fluorocarbon to the end of the lead-core as a leader. Then tie on a slender minnow-imitating crankbait. Running the boat at about 1.5 to 2 mph, pay out enough line to reach your desired trolling depth. If your sonar is marking fish at 25 feet, for example, let out about 3.5 colors. Put your rods in holders so the rods extend out from the sides of the boat and low to the water. That way, rod flex will cushion the shock of a strike.

A trolled crankbait vibrates a rod tip very distinctly. Any slight variation in that rod-tip vibration means the lure has somehow been fouled and needs to be reeled in and cleared. Several quick dips usually indicate that you’re hitting bottom, so reel up a few feet and check the depth on your sonar.

270 TAKE THE LONG SHOT

THE SPOT Black crappies begin spawning when the water hits 60 degrees, usually in 3 to 10 feet of water over a sand or gravel bottom. Points near creek channels at the mouths of bays are excellent places to start the hunt. The fish may hold anywhere from the end of the point to just inside the bay, and the more points you hit, the more fish you’ll catch.

THE LURES A 2-inch curly-tailed grub on a 1/8-ounce jighead is a traditional search bait, but small swimbaits and tiny diving crankbaits are equally effective and have actions that the fish may not see as often. Keep one of each rigged on your boat deck for quick presentation changes without retying. In clear water, light colors like chartreuse and white are usually the top producers.

THE GEAR Light-action spinning rods measuring 6 ½ to 7 feet are ideal for making long casts with small lures. A crappie’s mouth is soft, so choose a rod with a slow tip to keep hooks from pulling free during the set and fight. Small-diameter braided line helps lengthen your cast and is sensitive enough to detect subtle crappie bites at a distance.

THE METHOD Keep your boat at least 15 to 20 yards away from the point. Breezy days tend to be more productive, as a chop on the water generally makes fish more active and helps break up your shadow and reflection. Stay upwind of the point and fan cast across it, working the lure with a slow, steady retrieve. In clear, cool water, a crappie’s strike may be quick and light, so set the hook immediately on even the slightest bump. When you catch one fish, drop the anchor and spend at least a half hour covering the point with casts. It’s common for the action to ebb and flow, but rest assured: In spring, if you’ve found one crappie, more are probably holding in the same location.

271 GO ON THE OFFSHORE OFFENSIVE

After spawning, big largemouths and smallmouths gravitate to deeper structures, where they lie in wait for passing baitfish schools. Armed with a fishfinder and a set of marker buoys, you can tap into some hot bass action in these offshore honey holes.

SUBMERGED HUMPS Bass loiter around the perimeter of these structures, feeding when shad schools approach. Fan cast a topwater lure around the hump and dog-walk it back to your boat for an explosive surface strike.

RESERVOIR POINTS The fishiest points tend to extend a long distance from shore with a gradual taper, eventually cascading into a deep river channel. Bass will hunker next to isolated stumps and rocks on the tops and ends of these structures.

LEDGES These feeding shelves are flat on top and then drop off quickly into deep water. Largemouths stack up on them in summer and can be caught by dragging a ½ - to ¾-ounce football jig with a trailer around cover near the breakline.

272 CATCH WALLEYES SIX WAYS

Take to the lake in your boat and try one or all of these walleye pro techniques.

STAY BOLD After a cold front shuts down the bite, most anglers go to lighter tackle and slower presentations. Try a contrary approach, using bigger lures and erratic retrieves to provoke reaction strikes. Rip a jigging spoon, as this classic ice-fishing lure can fire up lethargic open-water walleyes. Choose a ¼- to ½-ounce model and cast to the edges of weedbeds, timber, or rocky structure. Wait for the lure to flutter to the bottom and then jerk the rod tip to rip the spoon toward the boat. Let it sink and repeat.

GET ON BOARD For eliciting bites from walleyes, the use of planer boards is unparalleled, but they don’t do you any good if you miss those strikes. When you troll a crawler harness beneath a board, add a flag strike indicator. The flag signals any slight change of the planer’s action. Also, because short-striking walleyes often nip the bait below the terminal hook on a standard harness, use a No. 10 light-wire treble at the very end of the crawler to nab sneaky bait stealers.

DO THE SLIDE Add slider rigs to your trolling setup. These are basically droppers attached to the main trolling line via a sliding snap about halfway between the planer board and the boat. Where legal, sliders let you cover a wider swath of water and try a variety of baits to pinpoint what walleyes want on a given day. Use a heavier dropper line than your main line to help prevent tangling. The key is to vary the depth (by adding more weight or longer line) and spinners and crankbaits until you start getting hit.

LIGHTEN UP A Roach rig is a classic setup for slowly trolling or drifting bait along promising bottom structure that employs a special walking stinger; it’s a great tactic when the bite turns tough. First, lighten things up with a 6-pound mono main line, a 3/8-ounce sinker, and a 4- to 8-foot-long 4-pound leader. Anchor directly above marked fish and present the rig vertically. With your finger on the line, you’ll feel the minnow start to get livelier when a walleye is on its tail. That’s when you open the bail to let the bait swim free.

CRANK A CRAWLER The crawler harness isn’t just for bottom fishing anymore. When walleyes suspend high in the water column (and where multiple lines are legal), pair this traditional favorite with a deep-diving crankbait. Here’s how to rig it: A 3-way swivel goes on the end of your main line. To the top ring, tie a 5-foot leader and connect a crawler harness with a quick-change clevis. On the remaining ring, tie a 10-foot leader and attach a snap and a crankbait. This lets you change baits easily until you hit gold.

BE A JERK Aggressive postspawn walleyes are just as quick as bass to clobber what appears to them to be a wounded baitfish. Take advantage of this tendency by casting longer jerkbaits to shorelines, rockpiles, or submerged weeds in 2 to 6 feet of water. Point the rod tip toward the water and be sure to snap it sharply back three or four times while reeling in slowly to create an erratic, rolling action. Pause several seconds and resume snapping. Be ready for walleyes to strike on the pause.

273 FIND LATE-SUMMER LARGEMOUTHS

By late summer, bass fishing is not for the faint of heart. Largemouths are often deep and lethargic, and they’re also frequently starting to relocate and suspend at mid-depth ranges as forage begins to move. This is when professional anglers start following the ABCs of summer fishing: aquatic vegetation, bridges, and current, the three shortcuts to finding fish.

LOCATION

AQUATIC VEGETATION

WHY BASS LIKE IT

Hydrilla, lily pads, hyacinths, and other greenery hold forage and provide cover, shade, and higher oxygen.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Edge irregularities, especially depth changes; brush, logs, or rocks with the vegetation; isolated patches of greenery.

TECHNIQUES AND TACKLE

Skitter floating frogs over the top and through openings; flip tubes and jigs into open holes; run shallow crankbaits along the outside edge. Use 50- to 65-pound braided line for frogs and tubes; 12- to 20-pound fluorocarbon for square-bill crankbaits.

BRIDGES

WHY BASS LIKE IT

Cover, shade, and abrupt depth changes are always present; nearby rocks often hold forage.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Brush lodged on the upstream side of pilings; current breaks behind pilings; baitfish around pilings.

TECHNIQUES AND TACKLE

Bulge a fast spinnerbait parallel to abutments and pilings near the channel first. Cover the brush at upstream pilings with a crankbait; hit the downstream side of abutments with a drop-shot rig. Use 8- to 16-pound fluorocarbon line (it sinks).

CURRENT

WHY BASS LIKE IT

Moving water produces higher oxygen, washes in food, and usually creates cooler temperatures.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Eddies and protected calmer water; rocks, small islands, other visible cover like stumps or logjams.

TECHNIQUES AND TACKLE

Cast light jigs, plastic grubs, or Texas-rigged worms upstream and let current carry them into quiet eddies. Work small buzzbaits across calmer areas, especially in early morning. Use 12- to 16-pound fluorocarbon for strength and low visibility.

274 GET A JUMBO ON THE ROCKS

In late August and early September, wolf packs of jumbo yellow perch in many lakes snap up hatching insect larvae on mudflats 12 to 30 feet deep near rocky reefs. A 1/16- or 1/8-ounce Lindy Slick Jig dressed with a 2-inch fathead minnow dupes perch best; choose the shinier colors. Vertically snap the jig up 18 inches and let it fall on a slack line. Quiver the jig just above the bottom to induce a strike.

When your graph marks a school of roaming perch, idle upwind (1) and let the breeze push you over the fish. Hold the boat directly above the school when it’s calm (2). If you don’t get a bite quickly, move on.

275 GET A BIG YELLOW

As the water warms, yellow perch will move deeper to more gravelly areas, where they’re easier to spot on sonar.

When angling for big perch, opt for a walleye-size jig. The 1/8-ounce size is a workhorse, but you may go as heavy as 3/8 ounce in windy conditions. Dress the jig with a minnow and tip the hook with a 2- to 3-inch shiner or fathead. Key on rocky points and reefs in the lake’s main basin, particularly the edges of these structures where the boulders transition to gravel.

Jumbo perch hug the boulder-strewn bottom when feeding 8 to 12 feet deep in early June, which makes them hard to see on a depthfinder. Find them by trolling jigs with an electric motor, pulling slowly enough to keep the lines nearly vertical. After locating jumbos, anchor and make short casts. Long throws result in frequent snags.

These big perch are going to go deeper as the water warms, but the jumbos don’t hold as tight to the bottom as their smaller brethren do. To take advantage of this, anchor over the perch and drop a jig straight to the bottom. Snap the jig up a foot or so and let it hang just above bottom for 10 to 15 seconds before the next snap. Try a medium-to-light-action 7 ½-foot spinning rod matched with a limber 6-pound monofilament.

276 HAVE A BIG BASS AFTER-PARTY

Postspawn largemouth fishing doesn’t have to be slow. Yes, some bass are briefly more focused on resting than feeding. But they’ll cream a bait if you put it in front of them. And after a short recovery period, largemouths go on a major feeding binge. Here are a few ways to take advantage of their gluttony.

WHACK THE WILLOWS Early in the morning, whack the willows with a boat oar. Newly hatched mayflies, clinging to the bushes in droves, will drop to the surface, attracting hungry baitfish. Within a couple of hours, big bass lured by the sounds of fish feeding on the surface will move in, too. Cast a popper tight to the bushes and retrieve it aggressively so it spits and pops. Lunkers will love it.

WORM THE BANK Many bass tuck themselves against shallow shaded banks after spawning to take a breather for a day or two. They aren’t feeding heavily yet, but you can provoke bite after bite with a worm Texas-rigged weightless on a 3/0 offset hook. Go with a hot color like Merthiolate orange or bubblegum pink.

CRANK THE WEEDS In natural lakes, weedlines are major stopovers for bass heading for deeper water. Set up near the edge of the weedline and cast a gold or silver lipless crankbait parallel to the cover. Then burn it back to trigger savage strikes.

TWITCH THE POINT In reservoirs, primary points that form the mouths of tributary arms are the final stop before postspawn bass venture into the main lake. They are seriously hungry now and have come to the right place: Massive schools of threadfin shad feeding on drifting plankton blooms periodically pass the point. Fling a ½-ounce spook-style topwater lure in the roadkill pattern past the breaking fish. Retrieve it with quick twitches of the rod tip and hold on.

277 CATCH NIGHTTIME SMALLMOUTHS

The biggest smallmouths in any lake head for the shoreline as soon as the sun sets. That’s because crayfish that have been hiding all day begin to stir now, and the bass know they can grab an easy meal. Start off by mounting black lights on the sides of your boat. These purple bulbs aren’t just for disco parties; they also illuminate only the first 30 to 50 feet of water and light up fluorescent lines without spooking fish.

Quietly motor in on rocky banks and points, staying 70 to 90 feet away, and then flick on the black lights. Use a 14-pound fluorescent monofilament with a 4-inch crawdad in black or blue up against the bank on a Texas rig. The retrieve at night is no different from doing it by day, but the lights make everything glow in the dark. As soon as you see the line move, you set.

Some people believe that night fishing with a black light and fluorescent line will actually make any angler a better daytime soft-plastic fisherman because the nighttime system makes the take so visual.

278 FIND TROUT IN THE DARK

Bushy streamers that splash and gurgle are the typical nighttime flies of choice for trout fishermen. For something different, when you have the best pools to yourself on a quiet night, try catching big browns and rainbows on dry flies. At night, color doesn’t mean anything. It’s all about silhouette. Tie on a slightly larger size than you’d use during the day, with a white wing for visibility. Anchor in a slow pool just before dark. Once your eyes adjust, you’ll be able to pick out rises.

Unlike in a daytime approach, don’t try to lead a trout at night. When you see a dimple on the surface, cast right to that spot. To make it easier, target fish rising 30 feet away or less and go fishing on nights with plenty of moonlight. You might not know exactly where your fly is, but the goal is to land as close to the rise as possible. In the dark, it’s difficult to determine whether you overshot or undershot the fish. If you lay out and see the dimple again, just lift the rod instead of setting. Either the fish will be on or it won’t. If it’s not, you just lay out again to the same spot.

279 FLATLINE FOR CRAPPIES

In this least complicated kayak trolling method, which can be used anywhere, your line is attached directly to a lure without any secondary weight or device added. Usually seen as a near-surface technique, flatlining allows you to reach moderate depths by trolling jigs or diving crankbaits. Crappies are common targets for summer flatline trollers. In many lakes, crappie schools suspend 10 to 15 feet deep, sometimes near structure but just as often in the open waters of the main lake. Here’s the tactic.

Spool 4- or 6-pound monofilament on common midweight spinning outfits. Remember crappies are soft-mouthed; a flexible rod tip keeps hooks from tearing out. Two-inch-long, 1/16- and 1/8-ounce crappie jigs are used most commonly with this technique. If you’re trolling with two or more rods, rig with jigs of differing weights or colors.

Slow-troll at 1 mph (best measured using a GPS unit) with one jig 30 feet behind the boat and another jig 60 feet back. The more line you have out, the deeper a jig will run. This jig can be as deep as 10 or 12 feet, depending also on weight. You should experiment with line length, jig size, and color until you start hitting fish. When you do, throw out a marker buoy as a target for your next trolling pass and then match your other trolling rod to the line length and jig that took the first fish.

For flatline trolling with diving plugs, fine-diameter superline will give you as much as 20 percent greater trolling depth compared with 10-pound nylon monofilament, as thinner superlines have less water resistance. You’ll get better hooksets, too, because superlines have less stretch.

280 KNOW YOUR CARP

Common carp, mirror carp, and grass carp are all technically invasive species, brought to the United States from Europe and Asia and released in American waters. And they certainly have flourished. All carp species are very hardy, and adapt well to living in both warm and cold climates. They can be found in almost every state, but what’s most interesting is that it wasn’t long ago when many U.S. anglers considered carp a “trash fish” not worth serious pursuit. That’s changed in recent years, thanks to both an interest in fishing methods adopted from Europe, where carp fishing has always been extremely popular, and the discovery that carp can be caught on the fly. Today major U.S. fly tackle manufactures offer special rods, flies, and line just for carp. The appeal is that carp are big—hitting the 50-pound range frequently—giving avid fly guys a much harder fight than the average trout. Carp are omnivores, so you can get them to eat a berry fly on the surface or a crawfish fly stripped along the bottom. For the non-fly angler, European bite alarms, boilie baits, and other specialty carp tackle are quickly becoming more available stateside.

281 SLOW DOWN FOR NIGHTTIME MUSKIES

In summer, when fishing pressure ramps up in many lakes, your best shot at a 50-plus-inch ’skie will come in the small hours of the morning. That’s when expert guides break out the dual-blade Double Cowgirl bucktails and give lessons in speed control. Muskies don’t react to visual cues in the dark. They use their lateral lines to feel vibration, and slow-turning blades give off more of a thump.

Because you want the blades on these giant spinners to just barely turn, fishing with them at night is less strenuous than it is during the day, when a fast burn is in order. Target the edges of weedy flats, as muskies lying near the bottom in deeper water move shallow by night. Most strikes come at boatside, and the trick to sticking the fish here is forgetting the figure 8 that daytime fishermen execute with a short line before picking up the lure to recast.

A fast figure 8 during the day makes the fish think the prey is getting away, so they’ll attack. At night they can’t see the lure as well, so you want to execute a long, slow L turn along the boat instead, just to keep the blades moving.

Don’t expect a strong take from your fish. Most muskies strike and keep moving forward with the lure, putting slack in your line, so a subtle tap is worth a hard set. It’s also important to know that muskies often hunt in packs after dark. It’s not unknown to hook as many as four fish on back-to-back casts, so don’t spend too much time taking photos of your first one.

282 SEE A CAT IN THE DARK

Hooking a 60-pound flathead in the dark isn’t the hard part of this hint—it’s working the fish out of the submerged tree where you likely found it that’s going to present the real challenge. To win this tree-hopping night game, you’ll want both a specialized rig and an application of brute force.

Live bluegills are a great bait, but you don’t want them swimming around, tangling in the trees. So instead of a single hook and leader, rig the bait on a 1-ounce jighead, passing the hook through the bottom jaw and out one eye. The jighead is tied directly to a 30-pound mono main line.

Using a 7-foot heavy-action conventional rod, drop the bait straight down, working all around a submerged tree, starting on the deep side and moving to the shallow side. The heavy jighead provides better contact with and control of the bluegill in the sticky stuff. As the cats may be on the bottom or suspended among the limbs, it’s important to work the entire water column.

Each drop should last only about 20 seconds. Basically, just give the bait a twitch or two and then move on. If the fish is there, it’ll bite pretty fast. You just have to keep that line tight and walk up and down the boat to get the fish away from the tree. You may want to do as some guides do and use a brush anchor—a metal clamp with teeth tied to a nylon cord—to tether your boat directly to the above-surface branches of the trees that you’re fishing. If one tree doesn’t produce a fish or a strike, move on to the next, but consider returning to a tree that was unproductive earlier. You never know—a big cat may have dropped by in the interim.

283 ADJUST THE CONTRAST

In the summer, bass pros say, you have a much better chance at a true hog of a largemouth after dark. Boat traffic in the day makes a lot of noise in the water, and it’s harder for bass to pick up on the sound of natural bait. It’s possible that they strike lures during the day because they’re confused by all the engine noise, which is all very well and good, but once they make mistakes during the day a few times, they’ll just stop feeding when it’s light.

Instead, wary bass go on the hunt when the water quiets down at night. To catch them, patrol flats with quick access to deeper water, where the fish will move in to feed. Use a ¾-ounce short-arm spinner-bait with a single Colorado blade. The heavy lure sinks quickly, which is key to using a pump-and-stop retrieve that will mimic a crayfish hopping along the bottom. At night, pros know that contrast is more important than color. Use a black or purple spinnerbait with a white pork-chunk trailer. The trailer creates a slight difference in contrast on the bottom. Big bass usually hit anything that’s moving the right way and stands out a little.

284 TROLL WITH DOWNRIGGERS

A downrigger consists of a large reel holding a thin wire cable that passes through a pulley at the end of a short boom. The cable end is fastened to a 4- to 12-pound ball that usually has a fin or vane to keep it tracking straight. The whole assembly is permanently mounted on a boat’s rear deck corner. Some small portable units are designed as clamp-ons. Use one or more on powered boats 16 feet or larger.

Downrigging can run your lures deeper than any other method. In extreme cases, depths can be as much as several hundred feet, but 30 to 60 feet is most common. It’s a great light-tackle method, too, because when a fish strikes, the line pops out of a release clip next to the trolling weight so the battle proceeds unencumbered by heavy gear. In most summer trout and salmon fishing, your sonar will show larger fish and schools of baitfish at or near the thermocline, that narrow band 30 to 70 feet deep where water temperatures drop radically. It’s very simple to run your downrigger weights and lures at that depth all day long.

With the ball at the surface and the boat moving at about 2 mph, let your lure out 30 to 60 feet behind the boat. The Acme Super Smelt is a fine choice among the slim, so-called “flutter” spoons that are trout-and-salmon favorites. Fasten the line to the release clip and put the rod in the adjacent rod holder. Make sure the reel drag is set extremely light so line will pay out as you lower the trolling ball. Once the ball is at the desired depth, tighten the reel drag back to a normal setting and reel in enough line so your flexible rod tip is bowed down slightly. When a fish strikes, the tip will pop up and pick up the slack.

Downrigger weights are heavy and can swing wildly in the air when you’re trying to rig a lure in a wave-tossed boat. The ball can damage your boat’s hull unless you control it. When rigging, keep the weight just under the water’s surface, where it’ll remain stable.

285 GET A WALLEYE ON BOARD

Planer boards are very effective for trolling walleyes, but they are a bit complicated to use. These 7- to 12-inch floating “boards” hold your line 50 to 100 feet off to the side of the boat. Setting a pair of planers, one on each side, means you’re covering a swath of water up to 200 feet wide and are thus more likely to encounter fish. And because the lines and lures are far away from your droning outboard, you’re less likely to spook fish. They can be used in any water conditions from any boat, but work best in calmer water with a powerboat, usually 16 feet or longer.

The most common walleye setup includes a 6-foot-high mast mounted in the boat’s bow. This mast holds two large take-up reels with cord that attaches to left- and right-side planers. The planer boards are tapered or ballasted to run at the surface.

As the boat moves slowly, pay out a board on its cord until the desired distance from the boat is reached. Then release line from your reel so your lure is running about 60 feet behind the boat and attach a release clip to your line and also to a “quick clip” that you slip onto the planer-board cord. Line tension from the trolled lure makes the clip slide along the cord all the way out to the planer board. Reel up slightly so there’s a little line tension between your rod and the board, and put the rod in a rod holder.

For the ultimate in walleye trolling, you can run two planer-board lines out on the sides and run downriggers or flat lines straight off the back of the boat. You’ll be presenting a range of lures at a variety of depths and places, and you’ll be so busy keeping track of it all that there won’t be any time for lunch.

286 GRAB A COLD ONE

Though smallmouth bass may be harder to hook in moving winter water, big fish are still out there for the catching from December through February. Small bass eat very small forage in winter; big fish may feed less often, but they’ll be looking for larger food that provides lots of energy. Success comes from tracking the weather, using the sun, and finding ideal bottom structure. Here are some top pro secrets:

1. SAND TRAP Anywhere there’s a transition from hard to soft bottom is a great place to start. Baitfish prefer a soft bottom—something the smallies know. Look for sandy 7- to 10-foot-deep eddies on west-facing banks because they get the most sun. You can hook on a diving twitchbait such as an XCalibur Xt3 worked super-slowly with long pauses. West-facing banks get the most sun, so hit them at the warmest point in the day. You might find a few fish searching for food wherever hard bottom meets soft.

2. PET ROCKS Target slack rock eddies with soft bottoms during slight warming trends. With their metabolism slowed, fish lurking there won’t dart into the current to eat. But barely twitch a soft-plastic tube in the calm eddy head and you can pick off one or two.

3. HOLE PUNCH If all else fails, find a 15- to 20-foot-deep slack hole and have at it, though this is a hard place to catch fish. Uses rabbit- or fox-hair jigs, as the material pulses even when the jig sits motionless on the bottom. Keep the jig still, imparting the slightest occasional twitch.

287 GO SPINNERBAITING FOR COLDWATER BASS

You can catch big wintertime bass by slow-rolling a spinnerbait in water as cold as 47 degrees. After a sunny warm front has baked the surface water for a few days, bass come up from deeper water in feeding mode. Carefully casting to fallen trees is the key. You’ll be able to pluck winter bass from main-lake windfalls on steep, rocky banks. Here, the bass can quickly move shallow or deep in response to the weather. When they swim up after a warm front, they typically suspend in the outer limbs of the fallen trees. They’ll readily nab a spinnerbait swimming above them.

THE TACKLE In most situations, you’ll do best slinging spinnerbaits with a 7-foot medium-heavy baitcasting rod matched with 50-pound braided line (A). The exception is in crystal-clear water, where pros suggest 14-pound fluorocarbon. Braided line is so sensitive that you’ll know instantly when you bump a limb or get a strike. The bites can be light when the water’s cold.

THE LURE A ¾-ounce chartreuse-and-white Booyah spinnerbait (B) is a winter workhorse. Try a small nickel Colorado blade ahead of a gold No. 7 willowleaf blade. The big willowleaf lets you crawl the spinnerbait at the slow speeds that appeal to sluggish bass hanging 5 to 12 feet deep.

THE TECHNIQUE Slow-roll the spinnerbait across the limbs at a 45-degree angle (C). Let the bait sink to the depth you want to fish before you start retrieving. If the bass are less than 5 feet deep, switch to a ½-ounce spinnerbait.

288 KNOW YOUR BROOK TROUT

Technically a member of the char family, “brookies” are the only trout native to the northeastern United States, with their natural range extending down the Appalachian Mountains from Maine to Georgia. Today native brook trout populations suffer due to global warming and development throughout their range. Still, cults of anglers in the Northeast hunt the tiny natives on light fly and spinning tackle in hidden streams that flow clear and cold. Natural brook trout are hard to find, but this fish is raised in hatcheries throughout the country and makes up a number of stocked fish that end up in waterways every spring and fall. Whether they’re native or hatchery-raised, you can count on them being aggressive; brook trout will often take a swipe at almost any lure or fly that gets in front of their face.

289 CRANK POCKETS FOR PRESPAWN BASS

When water temperatures approach 48 degrees in early spring, largemouths in murky reservoirs vacate their deep winter haunts and move into shallow indentations or “pockets” that occur along tributary shorelines, where they hold around submerged stumps and logs. This pattern is strongest on calm, sunny days, when a smartly worked crankbait will draw strikes.

THE TACKLE Accuracy and winching power trump long-distance casting capability. A sensitive 6½-foot baitcaster capable of handling lines to 20-pound-test is perfect for this application. Pair it with a baitcasting reel spooled with abrasion-resistant 17-pound monofilament.

THE LURE Go with a shallow-running, square-bill crankbait with a short, blunt diving lip. It’s a buoyant lure designed for banging off wood cover with a minimum of hangups. Firetiger, shad, and crayfish colors score in early spring.

THE TARGET Work shallow pockets with scattered stumps, logs, and blowdowns in murky reservoir tributary arms. Bass hold tight to wood on sunny days (A) but roam farther from the cover under cloudy skies. Start in the upper end of the creek arm, where the water is likely to be warmest and murkiest, and then gradually fish out to the main lake.

THE PRESENTATION Cast just beyond your target and begin reeling slowly and steadily, using the rod to steer the lure directly into the cover. In this “crash-and-burn” kind of cranking, you want the lure steamrollered right into the wood (B). Don’t be afraid of hanging up.

290 CRANK THE CREEK

As the prespawn progresses and smaller male bass begin cruising the skinniest nearshore waters, the biggest mamas lurk nearby. But they stay hidden, gravitating to any slightly deeper water within flats and bays. This makes reservoir creek channels and ditches—which may bottom out at only 3 or 4 feet—the hottest mega-bass spots just prior to the spawn.

The tight wiggling produced by a flat-sided crankbait really triggers these fish to bite. Toss your crankbait across a creek channel or ditch and run it at medium speed over the edge of the drop. Keep the lure bumping bottom and bouncing off any cover. In clear water, retrieve a jerkbait over the wood. Pay special attention to tree stumps and logs along the edge.

291 TAKE SWIMMING LESSONS

In early spring, bass move onto reservoir flats to warm up prior to spawning. They’re sluggish in cold water, so they’ll often ignore a fast-moving crankbait or a bulky spinnerbait. But a jig that is swimming like a slow-moving baitfish is an offer they often can’t refuse. A weedless, 1/8- to 3/8-ounce jig in black, brown, or green pumpkin works best with this horizontal presentation. Tip the hook with a matching pork- or plastic-chunk trailer to add a realistic fluttering action. Fish the combo on a 7-foot medium-heavy spinning or baitcasting outfit with 8- to 12-pound fluorocarbon.

STEP 1 Position your boat on the outer edge of the flat, ideally in 10 to 12 feet of water. Bass will hold around bottom transitions—areas where gravel changes to mud or mud changes to chunk rock—and scattered wood or rock cover. Make a long cast and let the jig sink to the bottom.

STEP 2 With your rod held rock-steady at two o’clock, reel quickly so the jig shoots off the bottom, and then begin a medium-slow steady retrieve so it swims like a baitfish. The trick is to retrieve the jig so it follows the bottom contour. If you feel it drag bottom, reel a little faster. If you haven’t felt it drag in a while, slow down a little until it does; then speed up again.

STEP 3 Bass strikes are often light in cold water. If you feel a tick or detect any suspicious weight on your line, set the hook hard.

292 CHERRY-PICK THE TREES

Trying to find reservoir largemouths from midsummer through September, when bass follow schools of baitfish moving unpredictably around the lake, can be maddening unless you know two things: (1) The fish usually suspend 8 to 12 feet deep over much deeper water; and (2) isolated clumps of flooded timber near dropoffs and points serve as rest stops and snack stations for these roving bass. Work such trees at the right depth, and you’ll consistently catch heavyweights when nobody else can find the fish.

CONIFERS The maze of branches (A) that extend from cedar and pine trees give bass a dense sanctuary. Fish tend to cling to the odd type of cover in a given area, so look for a cedar surrounded by hardwoods.

DROPPING PLASTIC Cast a 10-inch worm rigged with a 4/0 hook and a 3/16-ounce bullet sinker to the center of the limbs (B) with a medium-heavy baitcasting outfit matched with 15- to 20-pound monofilament.

FALL FOR IT Count the worm down about 10 feet on a semi-slack line. Most strikes are going to come on the initial drop. If not, hop and swim the worm back through the limbs (C).

HARDWOODS The upper branches of many hard-woods (D) spread out and offer bass numerous hiding places. Trees with more horizontal limbs generally attract more bass than trees with vertical ones. The thickest limbs tend to hold the biggest bass.

BUSTING BRUSH Flip a ½-ounce jig-and-pig to the trunk of a cedar tree with a stiff flipping rod and 25-pound monofilament or 50-pound braided line. Let the line drape over a branch and work the jig down, a few feet at a time (E), to a depth of 10 to 12 feet. Jig the bait up and down at each level to coax strikes. When a bass nabs the lure, set the hook with all your strength and horse it out before the fish can wrap the line.

THE SHADE FACTOR Fishing standing trees is usually best when the sun shines. The bright light drives bass into the shade beneath the branches (F). Cast your lures to the shaded sides of trees and limbs to get more strikes.

WHERE TO LOOK Search for trees poking just above the surface in water 20 feet or deeper on main-lake areas and in the lower third of major creek arms. The most productive are located on the ends of points, near creek-channel bends and on the edges of deep flats and dropoffs.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR Sometimes a small limb that sticks a few inches above the surface is the tip-off to an overlooked tree. Wear polarized sunglasses to help you spot underwater timber.

293 BEAT THE DRAW-DOWN

Reservoirs usually are releasing water to draw down high levels around the same time crappies are moving into postspawn patterns. This scenario creates a challenge: The fish could be 4 feet deep in 20 feet of water, or 10 feet deep in 10 feet of water. Here’s how to search for slabs.

PRESENTATION Slow troll along breaklines, riprap, and points (A). Try using a jig, and go slowly enough that the lines drop straight down for proper action. The fish are moving to colder water, following the baitfish, which you’ll often find in faster-moving current. The key is to use a fishfinder to locate baitfish. You find the baitfish, you’ll find the crappies. To maximize search results, fish two rods, each rigged with different jigs, at different depths.

TACKLE Try a longer rod (10 feet) and a baitcasting reel (B). The rod’s extra length delivers more hooksetting power and keeps the lures away from the boat to cover more water. When choosing a reel, look for something with a good brake that lets you place baits precisely in tight cover. Go with 8- to 10-pound-test line for enhanced strike detection.

LURES Rig two jigs per rod, spacing them about 18 inches apart (C). Tie the first jig with a Palomar knot, leaving a 2-foot-long tag end to which you fasten the second jig with another Palomar. Adjust the jig depth until you get into fish. In calm conditions, use 1/8-ounce jigs top and bottom. In strong wind or current, use a ¼-ounce jig as the lower lure.

294 REIGN IN THE RAIN

If bass refuse to belt your spinnerbait during a rain shower, they may be guarding beds and unwilling to chase the lure. While it’s harder to see the beds through a rain-rippled surface, the bass also have trouble seeing you. This makes them less inclined to spook and more likely to bite. Take advantage of this situation by pitching a 3½-inch tube into beds. One favored color combo is chip gold (flake) and watermelon, rigged Texas-style with a 3/0 offset hook, a 3/16-ounce bullet sinker, and 17-pound line. The heavy line will help wrestle bass out of beds nestled in nasty cover.

295 COVER THE COVER

Largemouths will charge spinnerbaits from any type of cover, but they tend to show a preference for various areas on any given day. Find out where the bass are currently holding and then focus your efforts accordingly. You need to probe shallow grassbeds, boat docks, stumps, flooded bushes, the limbs of fallen trees, and any other available cover until the bass tell you where to fish for them.

Take advantage of your lure’s characteristics when searching for these bass. The spinnerbait is one of the most snag-resistant lures and efficiently combs vast amounts of water (even at low speeds). Cast beyond the cover when possible and then guide your spinnerbait close to it with your rod tip. Don’t overlook riprap and rocky banks; bass often position themselves nearby in shallow water when it rains. Move your boat close to the bank, cast parallel to the shoreline, and keep your bait hard to the rocks throughout the retrieve. When a bass takes a shot, you’ll know, because it won’t be subtle.

296 GO SLINGIN‘ IN THE RAIN

A spinnerbait is my first choice for wet springtime bass fishing. Rain usually means a falling barometer, which makes bass more inclined to feed and chase. The dark skies and dimpled surface reduce light penetration and encourage bass to move to the edges of their cover, for a much-enlarged strike zone. You don’t have to put your bait within inches of a bass’s nose to prompt a bite. Merely get it close enough for the fish to see it or sense the vibration through its lateral lines. A bass in a rainy-day mode won’t overlook a flashing, pulsating spinner-bait. To fish shallow water in a steady rain, I like to use a light-colored lure, usually a white 3/8- or ½-ounce spinnerbait with nickel blades. I opt for rounded Indiana or Colorado blades, which have more lift, when I want to run the lure slowly just beneath the surface. If I need to retrieve the bait a little faster or deeper, I switch to narrower willowleaf blades. Heavy 15- to 20-pound-test line helps reduce break-offs in thick cover. When the rain breaks or turns to showers, I downsize. A big spinnerbait fished in slick water may look too gaudy to bass. I’ve had success going as small as 1/8 ounce, in white, with a No. 2 Indiana and a No. 3 Colorado or Oklahoma blade. If you can’t find a small spinnerbait in one of these combinations, buy one that has a Colorado lead blade and a willowleaf trailing, and replace the latter with another Colorado. I fish these diminutive versions just as I do the larger ones, and with the same heavy line—and I draw strikes from sizable bass.

297 GIVE IN TO BLIND AMBITION

A layer of ice and snow can make figuring out where to fish on a new lake or pond challenging—but not impossible. First, you need a depth chart. Look for areas that structurally match with the species you’re targeting. For warmwater fish like bass and pike, look for weedy areas. For trout or salmon, dropoffs are productive. For all species—especially walleyes—look for offshore humps. Mark these places on the map. Once you have your map plotted, here’s how to set your tip-ups in the strike zone.

STEP 1 Drill 11 holes in a U pattern across gradients. Set two rows of tip-ups—starting about 40 yards apart—at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 feet deep. Set the last tip-up in 30 feet of water between the two rows. If there is an offshore hump in the area, set a couple more tip-ups there at 5 and 10 feet. This spread puts bait in front of fish that are traveling along gradients and hunting in the area.

STEP 2 Rig the shallower tip-ups, those at 5 and 10 feet (and the hump set), with the biggest baits, like a shiner, because the fish at these depths will be hunting. The deeper sets get smaller baits, as these fish may be less active. Drill additional holes by the hump and the deepest sets where you and your buddy can work jigs. You’ll put a few panfish in your bucket and draw the attention of a bigger predator fish. And if nothing else, the activity will help keep you warm as you wait for a bite.

298 KNOW WHEN YOU‘RE ON THIN ICE

Ice is generally said to be thick enough for walking and fishing at 4 inches. But not all ice is created equal. Clear ice that forms in December will be stronger and more elastic than the same depth of ice in March, when the bonds fusing the crystals have become stressed from spring sunlight, giving it a honeycombed appearance. Color also counts. Beware of black, gray, or milky ice, which lacks the strength of clear green or blue ice. Expect snowpack or standing water to weaken ice, and steer clear of exposed rocks and logs, which can conduct heat to the surrounding ice. Decaying vegetation also leads to unstable conditions. Seldom is ice uniformly distributed across a lake surface. Ice near shore, which is subject to both conductive heat from the land and reflected sunlight from the bottom, will be weaker than ice that forms over open water. Springs and inlets can prevent the formation of safe ice. Even waterfowl and schooling fish, such as carp, can slow ice formation by circulating the water.

The golden rule of walking on ice is “Probe as you go.” Use an ice chisel or spud bar with a sharpened point to act as your “ear to the ground”: Safe ice sounds solid and dull when you thump it. Rotting ice creaks or feels spongy. A single hard jab will usually break through ice that is less than 3 inches thick. If in doubt, test ice thickness with an auger or, more efficient, a cordless ¼-inch drill with a 5/8-inch wood auger bit. Carry a retractable tape measure for a precise measurement.

299 JIG BIG LAKERS IN SKINNY WATER

Fighting a jumbo lake trout through a hole in the ice is an intense experience, but to get a 20-plus-pounder on the line, you have to think outside the box when hunting on the hard water. One pro tip is to skip the deep water and go shallow. Legendary Colorado ice guide Bernie Keefe frequently jigs in as little as 3 feet of water, provided there is deeper water close by. Keefe says big lakers in deep water can often be finicky, but if a monster comes in shallow, it’s there for one reason only: a fast meal. You won’t have light taps and half-hearted strikes. A laker on shallow flats wants to grab a meal and get back to the nearby depths fast, so your jig won’t get hit—it’ll get slammed. Hang on tight.

300 DRILL DOWN ON IT

When fishing from a boat, most anglers move around the lake and try new spots all day, but in ice fishing, many just drill holes over spots that have been productive in the past and stay put. The thing is, making the effort to move on the ice and drill lots of holes will get you more fish. Since you can’t cast in different directions on the ice to run your lure through new pieces of water, drilling holes even 20 feet apart can increase hookups significantly, especially when fishing species like lake trout, pike, and walleyes that tend to roam around an area. There could be fish all around your lure or bait that just don’t get close enough to see it, but a redrill a short distance away will put the offering right in the zone. Some ice fishing guides will drill more than 100 holes a day and cover 3 miles of lake, and they usually catch the most fish. I also landed the biggest lake trout I’ve ever caught through the ice after three drops into a hole not 30 feet from one I’d been jigging for an hour.

301 BE A WALLEYE PUPPET MASTER

Swimming jigs are to walleyes what jelly donuts are to bears, but surprisingly few ice fishermen use them. The lure itself is nothing new, but a little puppet mastery will bring the jig to life. Here are the most effective motions:

LIFT AND DROP Try this basic action framed within the first 2 feet off the bottom. Use some finesse here—a light, smooth snap fares better than a sudden jerk. Add a circular motion to give the lure an erratic movement, which the walleye interprets as a bait in distress—in other words, dinner. Walleyes typically hit the lure on the drop. Subsequently, the next lift develops into a hookset.

SHIMMY AND SWIM Walleyes are known to be stingy biters. When that happens, reduce the range to 6 inches and soften the stroke. On a taut string, the lure continues making deliciously unpredictable moves, but without the octane. Do a shimmy—basically an in-place quiver—every half-dozen lifts. That kind of nervous behavior can propel a wary walleye to bite.

Try these tricks on a medium-action 28- to 30-inch rod and 10-pound braided line for improved feel, with a 2- to 4-foot-long 8-pound-test monofilament shock leader. The inherent stretch of mono line helps set the hook without pulling the lure from the walleye’s mouth.

302 CATCH A SHAD-MAD CAT

Pike nuts know all about the bite that coincides with ice-out. But what few anglers know is that an abundance of bait—winter-killed shad—makes this one of the best times of the year to catch catfish. Just be sure to dress warm. As an outfit for these ice-cats, try an 8-foot, 6-inch steelhead rod, matched with a reliable baitcaster with a good drag. Spool the reel with 10-pound monofilament.

Shallow, dark-bottomed still water—1 to 3 feet deep—adjacent to deeper current channels warms earliest. Dead shad collect in the eddies, and catfish cruise over a wide area, taking advantage of the bounty. So many dead shad are on the bottom that the cats are cherry-picking the choicest morsels, the innards. Look for floaters along the bank or gather live bait with a cast net. Put a 3/8-ounce barrel sinker, 5 mm glass bead, and snap-swivel on the end of your line. Finish the rig with an 18-inch braided leader and No. 1 red baitholder hook. String the guts on the hook as you would a big nightcrawler, and squirt artificial shad scent on the guts every time you recast.

303 HIT THE FARM ICE

You don’t need a fancy underwater camera, gas auger, or snowmobile to ice-fish that 1-acre pond up the road. Once the ice is at least 4 inches thick and safe to walk on, grab a rod, something that will chop a hole in the ice, and a bucket of live shiners. Here’s where you’ll find the fish:

SLOPES Those shallow, weedy areas that held bass in warmer times are not going to hold much now except baitfish trying to escape danger under the ice. But largemouths and crappies will often hug the slopes leading up to those shallows (1), where they can sneak in and grab a meal. In this area, drop a live shiner on a single hook with a split shot 12 inches up the line. This rig allows the bait to swim freely, making it more likely to trigger a bite from fish that are inclined to roam and chase a moving target.

EMBANKMENTS Most farm ponds have one steep side, and this is typically where you find the deepest water (2). Perch, bass, and crappies will spend most of their time tight to the bottom, but a live shiner on a jighead dangled in front of them won’t last long. Drop the bait all the way to the bottom and slowly reel up until you hit the school.

304 POWER UP

Power plants are often built along rivers so they can draw in necessary cooling water. Heated water flows back out into the river, drawing bait and gamefish like a magnet in winter. If the area is legally accessible, look for fish in these spots.

MOUTH Large predators, such as muskies and striped bass, will patrol the area where warm discharge water meets cold river water (A). They’re less interested in small bait, so work a perch-colored twitchbait near the end of the chute or live-line big baits like suckers or shad.

BANK Walleyes and larger smallmouths tend to hang along the sides of the discharge chute out of the main current (B), waiting for forage to flush down to them. Hop a white grub on a jighead through the water below any current break.

HEAD Baitfish congregate near the head of the discharge, where the water is the warmest (C). Crappies, perch, and smallmouths hang in the calmer water next to the center flow, picking off bait that washes into the eddy.

305 KNOW YOUR CHINOOK SALMON

Also known as king salmon, this is the largest member of the salmon family and can weigh over 90 pounds. Native to the Pacific Coast from Northern California to Alaska, Chinooks are prized for their quality on the table and their brute fighting ability. In late spring through early summer (and in fall in the case of Great Lakes salmon), Chinooks return to the rivers of their birth from the ocean, where saltwater anglers wait to intercept them in bays with trolling spoons and jigs, and fly and conventional anglers line rivers to throw plugs and streamers as the fish migrate upstream. Once salmon enter rivers to spawn, they stop feeding. Striking at a lure or fly is purely an aggressive reaction. Popular salmon lure and fly colors are rarely natural but instead bright and flashy to essentially annoy a salmon into biting.

306 CATCH COLD STEEL

Whether you’re wading the Deschutes River in Oregon or drifting the Salmon River in New York, steelhead that migrate into Pacific and Great Lakes tributaries in fall stay in the icy flows until spring, offering a challenge to anglers willing to brave the chill action with these brute fighters all winter. The key to finding them is knowing what kind of water they prefer during the cold season. Focus your efforts on slower runs, slackwater banks, and eddies with a depth of 4 to 6 feet. Holding in fast riffles and chutes requires steelhead to expend too much energy when it’s cold, so they hunker down in the quieter water that requires less movement to keep positioned upstream in the current. Though the action may not be as fast as earlier in the year, when you do connect with an egg bead or sucker spawn fly, get ready for a smoking run. Since steelhead don’t move as much this time of year, they’ve got energy stored up, so they often go ballistic when you set the hook.

307 ASSUME THE TUNA POSITION

Offshore trolling can be intimidating to novice bluewater anglers, but you don’t need a huge boat and the ability to troll 16 lines to catch yellowfin and bluefin tuna. If you’ve got a smaller boat with outriggers, five trolling combos, and some basic tuna lures, you’re all set. Follow this simple plan for positioning the right lures in the right spots while running 5 to 7 mph, and you’ll be eating sashimi in no time.

1. 15 TO 25 FEET Tuna like the bubble trail made by propellers. That’s why you should always have a lure with lots of action, like a cedar plug, swimming right in the prop wash.

2. 35 TO 40 FEET Position a single tuna feather or skirted lure just beyond the prop wash. This lure will take fish that are interested in the bubble trail but not willing to come in close to the motors.

3. 55 TO 60 FEET From one outrigger, pull a daisy chain of skirted lures in the clean water past the prop wash. These lures should be weighted so that they keep dipping below the surface and rising back up.

4. 75 TO 80 FEET On the other outrigger, drag a daisy chain of hollow squid lures. These squids will dance and splash on the surface, not only enticing tuna in the spread but also attracting others in the area with sound.

5. 150 TO 300 FEET Always dump one of your lines way, way back behind the boat—in what’s called the “shotgun” position. A lure with a chugging head that makes noise on the surface should pick off any shy fish that refuse to come into your main spread.

308 GET A JUMP ON STEALTHY SNOOK

A guide once told me that a snook is like a mugger in an alley—it hides in the shadows, waiting for prey to pass by. Then it bolts out and attacks. Snook are naturally nocturnal feeders, and many guides base a hunt around tidal flow. These fish prefer to let the tide bring a meal to them, and they’ll use any structure that breaks the current—particularly dock pilings and bulkheads—as ambush points. A high outgoing tide is best; a slack tide hardly ever produces fish. If you find a lighted dock that creates a strong shadow in the water, you’ve hit big-snook pay dirt, but fooling a fish hiding under the boards boils down to proper presentation. Never pitch a bait directly to the spot the snook is likely holding in. You have to cast uptide and let the bait naturally move down into the light. If it doesn’t get attacked in three or four casts, either the fish isn’t there or it’s not going to eat.

Opt for a live pinfish or finger mullet pinned through the nose with a 4/0 circle hook and rigged weightless on a 30-inch length of 40-pound fluorocarbon. The heavy leader will withstand abrasion on pilings and on a snook’s sharp gill plate. When a snook does grab the bait, it’s critical to fight it with the rod first and the reel second because low, severe rod angles are often necessary to get the fish away from the structure.

309 KNOW YOUR RED DRUM

Also known as redfish, this inshore saltwater species is one of the most widely distributed in the country. What makes these fish so popular is that you can adapt almost any fishing style to their pursuit. Flyfishermen can delicately present crab flies to tailing reds in shallow coastal marshes of the Florida Everglades. Surf-casters working the rough shores of North Carolina can fire chunks of fresh menhaden in hopes of scoring a giant “bull” red from the sand. Anglers working the dirty water at the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana will get drags screaming by working a popping cork and soft-plastic shrimp. No matter where or how you hook a red, be ready for a fight. Big fish weighing 20 to 50 pounds will drain a spool of line and dog to the bitter end.

310 GET THE RED OUT

Stalking redfish in shallow marshes is one of angling’s ultimate thrills, and when the water’s clear, you can spot the lit-up copper and gold in a redfish from a mile away. So what happens when the water is murky or stained? Don’t fret. If you know the telltale signs of a red, it’s easier than you think to decipher what kind of fish are swimming close by without actually seeing them.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

BROAD V-WAKES A guide I fished with once likened a redfish to a fire extinguisher being pulled underwater. There will be a distinct bulge in the surface made by the fish’s broad, blunt head, followed by a long trailing V-shaped wake. Reds often swim very straight and deliberately, so if the wake is moving erratically, it’s probably something else.

TAILS There’s no surer sign of a redfish than spotting a gold tail with a black spot waving in the air. When reds grub in the muddy shallows for shrimp and crabs, they’ll angle their bodies down and their tails will break the surface. Not many other fish in a marsh feed this way, but if you do see another tail, remember: No black spot, no cast.

MOVING GRASS Other marsh residents, such as sea-trout and jacks, will typically feed in open water and deeper channels, whereas reds often hug grassy shorelines and flooded cane banks. They also swim into flooded vegetation to chase bait, so if you see moving grass or cane, there’s a good chance it’s signalling a red out hunting for a meal.

WHAT TO AVOID

WISPY V-WAKES If you see V-wakes on the surface that pop up quickly, move fast, and then disappear, don’t get excited. You’re probably seeing mullet. Though these baitfish can grow quite large and push a sizable amount of water, they move much quicker and far more erratically than a redfish.

BIG, SUDDEN SPLASHES These could be from redfish, but if they are, you’ll probably see another splash in the same area in short order. If there’s one big splash and no more movement, you’ve probably just seen a gar. Gar lie still as logs just under the surface, bolting away suddenly and creating a big splash when they get spooked.

DIVING BIRDS Most of the time, a big flock of birds isn’t going to point to redfish, at least not when you’re in a backcountry marsh setting. Birds are typically drawn in when fish attack a school of baitfish from below and drive it to the surface. Sea-trout and jacks corral bait in this manner. Reds more often feed close to the bottom, so they’re not as likely to be the initiators of a bird blitz on the surface.

311 DITCH THE WIRE

Though wire leaders are the norm in shark fishing, sometimes sharks can get “wire shy,” especially in clear water, where a stiff, dark wire really stands out. Unless you’re chasing shark with big teeth, such as makos, tigers, or hammerheads, try ditching the wire and switching to a heavy-gauge circle hook crimped directly to a 4- to 10-foot length of 300-pound fluorocarbon leader. When a shark strikes, let it swallow the bait. Instead of setting the hook, point the rod at the fish and reel until the circle hook sets in the corner of the shark’s mouth. The heavy fluorocarbon may abrade lightly, but a single pass through the teeth of sandbar shark, thresher, or blacktip shouldn’t sever the leader. If the hook sets properly, the shark also shouldn’t be able to get its mouth around the leader to take more bites during the fight. Circle hooks allow for faster, safer releases, and I’ve seen fish weighing 300 pounds landed without a stitch of wire in the rig.

312 TAKE ’EM TO SCHOOL

A school of mahimahi can be downright ravenous, attacking any baits or lures pitched close by as soon as they hit the water. When one fish is hooked, the others often follow it during the fight, so you should never take a struggling mahi out of the water until someone else on the boat hooks the next one. Once there’s another fish on, the first hooked fish can be reeled in. The second angler should keep his or her fish fighting in the water until the first angler recasts and hooks another. If you were to keep pulling each mahi into the boat, leaving no struggling fish in the water for the rest to follow, the school would disperse or lose interest, moving away from the boat or getting a sudden case of lockjaw.

313 POP ON OVER

Many saltwater anglers are married to the idea that if they don’t see any gamefish feeding on the surface, there’s no use in casting a topwater lure. But that’s actually the opposite of the truth. Sometimes when the ocean just seems completely devoid of life and you can’t get bit no matter what lures or jigs you try below the surface, a topwater lure can draw a strike, even from a fish holding at a considerable depth. Why? Because sound is a powerful thing, and sometimes the chugging and splashing of a popper on an otherwise quiet surface is the little trigger that gets lockjawed fish chewing. Next time you’re marking fish on your sounder but can’t get them to eat, make a handful of casts with a loud popper or Spook-style lure with rattles. The monster striper, snook, redfish, or sea-trout that rises to the occasion might shock you.

314 FIND STRIPERS IN THE DARK

Summer success with nighttime stripers often means moving away from the main beach and targeting areas with current where nonmigratory bass stake claims during the hot months. Inlets—especially those with bridges—are good spots, as a falling tide will draw forage from the bay to bass stationed near the inlet mouth or behind pilings.

If you can learn how to swing a plug, you’ll catch a lot more bass than you would just by reeling. Try casting upcurrent at a 45-degree angle, then lock the reel and never turn the handle. As the line comes tight in the current, the lure will dig and start swimming across the current on its own. To a bass, this looks like a dead, floating baitfish that suddenly came to life. It’s a real strike trigger.

Even after the line completely straightens out, give the lure at least 20 seconds of extra hang time to entice any reluctant bass before retrieving for another cast. The trick after catching one fish is to repeat the same swing again and again, as stripers will often congregate in a small area.

315 MOUNT YOUR CATCH AND EAT IT, TOO

Ever notice that you can gauge the size of a fish just by looking at the tail? If you don’t want to pay for a replica mount or waste the meat by having a skin mount made, fillet your next whopper, save the tail, and make your own trophy.

STEP 1 Remove as much meat as possible from the base of the tail with a sharp knife or grapefruit spoon. With wire cutters, clip the spine as far back as possible. Don’t damage the skin or lose any scales. What’s left should be a hollow pocket.

STEP 2 Spread the tail out and press it between two pieces of cardboard covered in wax paper. Use binder clips to keep pressure on the cardboard.

STEP 3 Rub the inside of the pocket with borax laundry powder and then fill the pocket with expanding plumbing foam. Place the tail in a cool, dry spot to set for three weeks.

STEP 4 Once dry, remove the cardboard and paint the tail to revive the color. Spray paint and acrylic work well. Saw off any excess foam to create a level surface, and glue the tail to a plaque or wood base for display.

316 SCALE FISH WITH WATER

Here’s an easy method for scaling fish: First, place the fish on a scaling board with its tail secured in the clamp (if you don’t have a scaling board, just hold the fish down by its tail with your thumb). Next, attach an ordinary pressure nozzle to a garden hose and simply spray the scales off from tail to head. Flip the fish and do the other side. Scales come off easily with no damage to meat— it takes less than a minute to do a whole fish!

317 PRINT THAT FISH

Japanese anglers invented gyotaku (fish rubbing) more than a century ago to record their fish and prevent the rampant lying that goes on with fishermen everywhere. Today several American fish printers have elevated the form to fine art. Follow their instructions, and you can make a print arguably—and there will be an argument—worthy of the wall (in the bathroom, maybe). Here’s how to make your artistically fishy statement.

CATCH IT Some fish print better than others. You’ll want to start with one that has fairly large scales, like a sunfish, rock bass, crappie, perch, or bass.

DE-SLIME IT Using hand soap and paper towels, clean the slime off the fish, pat it dry, and place it on a layer of paper towels over a foam board. Prop the fins open with wadded paper towel and pins, and put small pieces of paper towel under the gill plate and in the mouth to keep moisture from seeping out. Then let it air dry for 10 minutes or so.

INK IT With even strokes, brush the ink onto the fish from the gills toward the tail. Starting with lighter shades of ink on the belly, gradually move to the darkest along the back. Next, ink the head, excluding the eye (you’ll do that last), and then the fins. If the fish has spots or other distinctive markings, paint them in over the base coat with appropriate hues of block ink. Don’t go for photorealism; simplify the color scheme and then paint in only enough to give the right impression.

RUB IT Put a clean paper towel under the fish, then carefully lay a sheet of rice paper down over the fish. Hold the paper in the middle with one hand and use the other to thoroughly rub over the fish, working from the center out.

FINISH IT Peel the paper off. If you did’t apply enough ink, wipe the fish clean, let it dry, and try again. After it dries, use water-colors to paint the eye.