Thursday, September 21st, 2023

Breaking News for

Sportsmen Since 1967

Thursday, September 21st, 2023

Breaking News for

Sportsmen Since 1967

Vic Attardo

Farm pond mastery: Late summer is perfect time to tempt fish in small waters

The cow mooed, the pig squealed, the horse whinnied, the rooster crowed, and the green tractor let out a cough that would worry any doctor or mechanic.
I smiled. Making my way from the dusty one track where I’d parked my truck, and passing the two-story Dutch barn, I shimmied under the bottom strand of electric fence and walked to the edge of the oval pond. There I laid two rods and a tackle bag in the high grass next to a dehydrated cow pie. I felt so much tension disappear like smoke over my head.
If you’re a kid, or a kid at heart, I hope that sometime in your life you can fish a fertile farm pond and enjoy the simplest, purist fishing you’re ever going to do.

Focus on flatheads: Big fish are waiting in Pennsylvania’s warm-water rivers

It was too darn hot to fish during the day.
So we waited and waited. Sitting under the shade of an aging sycamore, with the boat already launched and pulled back up to shore, we dozed until the sun was close to setting.
No matter, we knew the fish we were after bit better at night. That fish, the invasive but tenacious flathead catfish – and by the way, the only fish that ever, anywhere, snapped a rod I was using – has become a popular target in every part of Pennsylvania with a “warm” river.

Bridge bass: Savvy tips for hot spots on every river

God, what a racket.
As the sleek Amtrak Acela came along from the south side of the bridge, the mechanical uproar grew and grew and grew. The train appeared out of the thin distance at the bridge’s far end, roared up in speed and expansion as only a train can, then, as we sat in the narrow boat, passed over us like something fleeing a war zone.

Here’s how to find deep-water crappies

If you’re a dedicated crappie angler, this is when things get dicey.
With the water warming, corresponding with sunny weather, crappies in big lakes will be found deeper. It’s not easy finding crappies in deep water, that’s for sure. Crappies are a schooling fish, though those schools become looser and looser as they transition from post-spawn into summer.

To catch big trout, try fishing at night

Th-thunk.
I felt it down through the rod and to my hand. In the middle of a swift forward cast with a 9-foot, 5-weight rod, I felt the th-thunk when I accidentally hit a bat flying low to the water. Actually it was the bat that hit my rod, I wasn’t aiming for it.
Perhaps the best non-hatch trout fishing book I ever read was Jim Bashline’s “Night Fishing for Trout.” I don’t think Jim ever wrote about dealing with bats but he did list his favorite night flies and one of them was called “The Professor.”

Red, white and bluegills: Take a kid fishing this Memorial Day

Before you leave for your all too brief Memorial Day vacation, grab one or two fishing rods from the basement or garage because this is your big chance to pull the kids away from their phones and hypnotizing devices and introduce them to the joys of the outdoors through fishing.
Take them on a Memorial Day bluegill outing.

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