Bass Fishing
Get pushy with spawners
Your trolling motor is essential for easing in and out of spawning areas, but when matching wits with skittish bed fish, even low power can ice the game.[…]
Sidebars
Bass Fishing
The birth of a lure
Lots of anglers can claim tournament wins, but few can claim a lure invention.
Keith Poche can.[…]
Bass Fishing
The right dropshot outfit
Bassmaster Elite pro John Crews is so exacting with his dropshot tackle that he helped Cashion Rods design one to his specifications.[…]
Bass Fishing
Maximum motion tempts prespawners
In the early round of Toledo Bend’s spawn, much of your success will come from targeting prespawners and those that have started moving into the bedding areas.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Two quick lessons
When it comes to finding crappie on trees, concentration and patience are important. But nothing can make up for experience.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Mind your minnows
If you want to stay on Rick Hill’s good side, just mind your manners. Or, to be more exact, mind your minnows.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Louisiana isn’t a level playing field
Horace Greeley was an 1860s farmer who heeded the call to “Go west, young man” because he saw the fertile farmland there as an ideal place for people to succeed.[…]
Sidebars
Pick out the right dog
There are no officially recognized breeds of squirrel dogs. It seems that members of every breed, from pit bull terriers to Chihuahuas, can be trained to tree squirrels.[…]
Sidebars
Good training makes for a good squirrel dog
According to Joe Shumaker and Terry Fletcher, squirrel dogs need to be worked three or four times a week from October through February.[…]
Sidebars
Damp, cloudy and gray — perfect day
While any day spent squirrel hunting in January and February is better than one spent at work or at home, some are definitely better than others according to veteran hunters Joe Shumaker and Terry Fletcher.[…]
Sidebars
A perfect start for young hunters
Boredom, a common affliction of young deer and duck hunters, is never a problem when hunting squirrels with dogs.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Tippets
By now, most of the “rainbeaux trout” that were stocked in ponds across the state have been harvested. But there’s still plenty left to make for some exciting action. […]
Bass Fishing
Tip of the day
Rickey Lee never buries the point of the hook into the body of his creature baits to make them weedless. Rather, he shoves the hook completely through the body and allows the hook point to lie in the groove on the bait’s body.[…]
Bass Fishing
Salvinia is tough on motors
Salvinia causes more than fishing problems. When running and approaching a drift line of the floating weeds, boat operators should keep a sharp eye out for barely floating logs disguised in the plants.[…]
Bass Fishing
Salvinia, salvinia and more salvinia
Rickey Lee sounded worried the night before the trip.
“Man, man, man, the salvinia (pronounced ‘silvania, north Louisiana style) is as bad as I’ve seen it. I tried to fish the middle of the lake today and only found one spot I could get in to. […]
Other Hunting
What you’ll need
The gear for a basic coon hunt isn’t that complex, Chris Jones said. You need plenty of well-charged lights — including a headlamp, a flashlight and a spotlight. (Running out of light on a coon hunt would be akin to leaving the plug out of your boat when fishing.)[…]