Fishing Diary

By Nick Simonson
There have been a lot of changes in my life over the past five years. I’ve lived in two states and three towns and have had six different jobs, with this one being the most consistent. In that time I’ve fished over 60 lakes and rivers, gaining some level of familiarity [...]

Building Fish Habitat

By Doug Leier
More than 40 years ago the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, in an effort to create structure for fish and create artificial habitat within Heart Butte Dam (Lake Tschida) in Grant County, sunk some old car bodies into the reservoir.
As you might expect, the practice of using car bodies for building fish [...]

Big Bang Baitfish

Our Outdoors
Nick Simonson
In cooler waters of May and June the shallows can seem almost bare. Nothing but the occasional waterboatman or roaming bluegill disturbs the water bordering shore. Then as summer peaks, it seems the shallows are suddenly alive and teeming with small fish, as if they exploded out of nowhere! This big bang of [...]

Summertime Bass Fishing Tips

Nick Simonson
Slop, gunk, or matting, call it what you will, but by this time in the summer, the combination of weed tops and surface vegetation has sealed off water access for shoreline anglers and limited the area that boat anglers can work. But those anglers who overlook this green gobbledygook could also be passing up [...]

Simple Bass Fishing Techniques

PJ Maguire
The first step I took as a fisherman was from catching sunnies off the dock to casting for bass along the docks. It is true that bass are a sunfish, so in theory this is a logical step. Most of my friends, like me, first started serious fishing for bass and then transitioned into [...]

Catch and Release 101

Our Outdoors
Nick Simonson

 

 
A dead-weight tug on the end of my line signaled that the largemouth bass under the dock was indeed hungry. I swept the rod back and the four-pound fish rocketed up out of the water. She battled every foot of the way to my hand.
I reached down, tweaked the hook and felt it [...]

Extra Hooks Bring the Sting

Our Outdoors
Nick Simonson

 

 
In one of the best Simpsons episodes, Moe uses a punch-absorbing Homer to relive his glory days as a boxer. But when Homer ends up having to fight the heavyweight champion, the all too Tyson-like Drederick Tatum, Moe searches through his bag of tricks to find the weapon that will help hapless Homer [...]

Fishing Laydowns

Joe Zentner
 Bank sloping trees that have fallen into the water, known as lay-downs, attract fish throughout the Midwest. Long-time anglers are keenly aware of the value of immersed trees. The primary cover choice of freshwater fish is, in fact, submerged wood.
A lay-down is a tree that has fallen into the water and is somewhat if [...]

Smallmouth By the Numbers

Our Outdoors
Nick Simonson

 

 
What a surprise! A stretch of warm spring days shook winter’s chill off some bronze scales and more than a week earlier than last year, I landed my first smallmouth bass. There’s no better time than now, during the prespawn, to search for big brown bass for some spring catch-and-release fun. By doing [...]

Carolina Rig Fishing

By Kevin Dahlke

 

 
The Carolina Rig is a technique that has been around for quite some time. It is used to cover an area quickly to find out what kind of structure you are fishing. Personally, I have put this technique on the back burner for the last number of years, but as of the last [...]