Sidebars Archives - Page 13 of 194

June 17, 2026

Unhooking Spanish mackerel doesn’t have to come with a cut

Follow these tips to avoid getting your fingers sliced while removing Spanish mackerel from your hook. […]

Anglers may be surprised how shallow decent sized catfish will be during the middle of the day in the summer.

Join the night (crawler) patrol for summer catfish

Trolling on the bottom for catfish has netted a lot of good fish through the years. Big cats can’t resist a piece of cut bait that’s tumbling just off the bottom. Veteran fisherman Hank Lyles said the opposite is also true, trolling baits that never touch the bottom. […]

Pick a MirrOlure by size and shape to match baitfish in an area. From top, 14, 17 and 27 sizes.

Match the hatch

Jerry Dilsaver

Guides Lee Parsons and Mark Dickson emphasize choosing lures that are the same body shape, size and color of the dominant forage in an area. Several of the Catch 2000 lures, plus the 52M and MR, TT and MirrOmullet, have the general body shape as a mullet, and all topwater MirrOlures have mullet shapes. […]

You can’t retrieve a MirrOlure too slowly; most strikes come when the bait is not moving.

No need for speed; slow is good

Jerry Dilsaver

Lee Parsons emphasizes that many fishermen fish too fast, especially with stickbaits like MirrOlures. His retrieve includes plenty of twitches and pauses, with current providing most of the forward movement. The idea is not to see how much water can be covered, but to entice fish to strike. […]

Pink lures, like this Yo-Zuri deep diver, are favorites of Atlantic bonito.

Pick a pink lure

Mike Marsh

“An Atlantic bonito doesn’t care about the color of a lure as long as it’s pink,” said Capt. Bruce Trujillo. […]

Turkeys don’t disappear on bad-weather days; knowing how they react to wind and rain can put you a leg up on tagging a gobbler.

Tricks for bad-weather birds

Jeff Burleson

It has been said, and often, that a turkey would be nearly impossible to kill if its sense of smell was sharp as its keen eyesight and extra-sensory hearing. […]

If you’re hunting a new area this spring, having a good game plan is a key to getting a twist on turkeys.

When a door opens….

Terry Madewell

Turkey hunters are always on the lookout for new places to hunt, and with land-management changes, good areas are always in flux. […]

Carolina rigs will catch as many fish in spring as they will in summer if used correctly.

Enter and exit, stage right

Jeff Burleson

Every bedding bass that makes it onto the shallow dance floor must first enter the staging area and eventually leave by the same route. […]

Trumpet calls are artificial wingbones, and they produce many of the same sounds as the original (second from right).

Try the “other” three mouth calls

Pete Rogers

Mention mouth calls to a turkey hunter, and diaphragm calls will come to most minds. […]

Measurements count

Jeff Burleson

Just like fertilizers and lime treatments, herbicides are necessary tools to make food plots shine and produce bumper results. Yet herbicides must be used at the correct concentration to receive maximum benefits. And too much juice will result in crop stunting and even death. […]