Sidebars Archives - Page 97 of 194

June 23, 2026

This big Lake Monticello blue catfish hit 89 minutes into a 90-minute wait, proving that patience is a key to catching trophy fish.

Anchor for big winter cats

Guide Chris Simpson catches big blue catfish at Monticello by drift-fishing and by anchoring, but if he is targeting big fish for a client, he will usually spend some of his time anchored. […]

Jonathan Reaser’s 2006 Rockingham County trophy scored 206 5/8 inches and is the third-largest non-typical buck ever killed in North Carolina.

Rockingham County: a firearms-frendly place

Dan Kibler

Rockingham County lies in the northern Piedmont, along the Virginia-North Carolina border. […]

Smoking can be a great way to preserve trout when you catch too many for a single meal and don’t want them to go to waste.

Smoke trout on the water and afterwards, too

John Gribb

Most guides and fishermen discourage killing more fish than you can reasonably eat, but in November, there is a real possibility of landing a 10-fish limit of trout and they are delicious. […]

To attract does, bucks deposit scent in their scrapes and on overhanging limbs known as “licking branches.”

Make your breaks with mock scrapes

Craig Holt

Creating “mock” scrapes during the rut is a deer-hunting tactic many hunters practice. […]

Kahle-style hooks (above left) are better for fishing live baits than standard J-hooks (above right).

What’s a Kahle hook?

John Gribb

Some very good guides and other fishermen use Kahle-style hooks when targeting speckled trout with live bait. […]

Ronald Nixon’s Orange County buck was one of North Carolina’s best in 2013-14. It scored almost 165 non-typical inches.

That .06 of a deer must have been difficult to kill

Craig Holt

Here are some facts about North Carolina’s deer harvest in 2013-14 and from the 2012-13 Hunter Harvest surveys compiled by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. […]

Guide Danny Rourk likes to fish big topwater plugs for speckled trout on overcast or rainy days.

Trout on topwater

John Gribb

Ask a freshwater bass fisherman about the most-exciting way to catch black bass, and most will revel over the exciting explosions of bass on topwater plugs. […]

A baitwell filled with lively shrimp is as close to a guarantee of speckled trout action as a fisherman can have.

Catch shrimp easily

Jeff Burleson

During the fall, the speckled trout bite shifts into high gear, and every fish is happy to find a feisty shrimp back-peddling as fast as possible. Basically, everything eats shrimp. […]

During the fall run, inshore waters fill up with big schools of speckled trout. Most of the fish that come into the Little River section of the ICW are of the smaller variety, often slightly on either side of the legal size minimum. […]

Predator hunter Ken Truesdale said that night-imaging technology has made night-hunting for hogs a snap.

Thermal-imaging devices are key for night hog hunts

Jeff Burleson

Farmers just about everywhere will quickly denounce the wild pig. Every year, wild pigs, aka feral hogs, are responsible for excessive crop and habitat destruction that contribute to tens of thousands of dollars every year. […]