Coast Guard Recommends Five Communications Devices

Coast Guard Recommends Five Communications Devices for Boaters
from The Fishing Wire

Going out on the water can be dangerous, especially if you don’t have the right equipment. If you do find yourself in trouble, being able to communicate that you need help can be a lifesaver—literally!

Here are the top five items the Coast Guard recommends you take with you on your boat so you can call for help if you need it.

1. VHF-FM marine radio: It’s the most versatile piece of comms equipment you can have! If you find yourself in distress, calling for help on the radio not only alerts the Coast Guard, but it also alerts all other vessels in your surrounding area who may be able to assist you. If you find yourself in distress, calling for help on the radio not only alerts the Coast Guard, but it also alerts all other vessels in your surrounding area who may be able to assist you. In addition to being able to call for help, it also allows you to receive important weather information, safety updates, and call bridges to request openings.

2. Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon: They let us know where you are via satellite! Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons can also tell the Coast Guard who the beacon is registered to and how to contact you! Register your beacon and verify your information here.

3. Air horn, whistle, or other approved sound-producing device: Sound producing devices work for day and night emergencies. The good thing about sound distress signals is that they’re good during any time of the day. Just like on a car or bicycle, boaters should always carry a sound signal to get the attention of other people on the area. For more information, click here.

4. Visual distress signals: To pyro or not to pyro? Nine of the sixteen internationally recognized distress signals are visual distress signals. Three are three pyrotechnic distress signals, and the other six are non-pyrotechnics. While visual distress signals can be extremely helpful when operating in a well-populated area, they should not be relied on as your only method of communicating distress. If you need to use a pyrotechnic distress signal, be sure to point the pyrotechnics in a safe direction, away from yourself and other people.

5. Cell phone: Not a primary, but a good back-up. While not reliable enough to be used on its own as an on-water communication device, it’s a good back-up in case your radio isn’t functional, you don’t have a radio, or you don’t know how to use one. The Coast Guard recommends mariners download the official Coast Guard Boating Safety App. One of the many features of the app allows mariners to place an emergency call to the U.S. Coast Guard or 911, and provides you with your current location to provide to emergency personnel over the phone.

Big Laser WMA Profile

Georgia’s public hunting areas include a mixture of National and State land, including Wildlife Management Areas, Natural Areas, National Forest and State Parks open for hunting. The choices are scattered all over the state and include a wide variety of habitat and hunting opportunities.

So how do you choose one if you are looking for a place to hunt on public land?

A little over two years ago Randy White started planning his move to Georgia from Virginia where he had lived and hunted for many years. While looking for a house, he discovered Georgia Outdoor News and started subscribing. He studied the Public Hunting Area information and chose three areas that met his requirement, and applied for quota hunts on them for the 2003 season.

The three areas he applied for were Big Laser, West Point and B.F. Grant. They were chosen based on being Quality Deer Management areas, having relative high hunter success rates and producing big bucks each year. He was drawn for a gun hunt on Big Laser where he killed a 10 point buck that scored 116 4/8 points on November 12th. On a muzzleloader hunt on West Point he got an 8 point buck.

Randy chose a good area at Big Laser for several reasons. The area is 9 square miles – 5900 acres – of land on the Flint River south of Thomaston. The river valley in that area is steep with high hills dropping to the river, so there is not much river bottom. But there are a lot of hardwood ridges, rolling hills, pine woods and thickets.

Stacey Koonce killed a 14 point buck at Big Laser that scored 102 1/8 points after having a 17 point deduct for sticker points and a spade brow tine. It was killed two days after Randy got his big buck, and Stacey says the buck was hard on a doe. When it walked up on him its tongue was hanging out and he was ignoring everything else.

The fact those two big deer were both killed in mid-November should give you an idea of the best time to hunt Big Laser. Although all the hunts can be good, the mid-November hunt is going to be during the height of the rut.

Stacey killed his deer at about 11:00 AM, close to the same time Randy killed his, and after many hunters have left their stands. That is another factor to keep in mind, stay in your stand as late as you can stand it, then wait longer. Many big deer are killed in the middle of the day on public hunting areas.

Lee Kennemer is the wildlife biologist in charge of Big Laser. He says Big Laser is a beautiful area to hunt with big hardwood groves on ridges around the river and on the hills away from the river. These open oak woods look like perfect deer habitat, and they do produce acorns for the deer in the fall. It is pretty, but it does not produce food for deer year round.

There is a lot of other kinds of habitat that produces food for the deer. The deer are healthy there even though the body weight is down a little due to the drought conditions the past few years. Antler growth has held up, though.

There are 30 permanent food plots on the area that cover 110 acres. Due to budget restrictions, not many new food plots are being put in, and the current ones are being managed for long term food production with Bahia grass and some overseeding of wheat. A few also contain some clover. Most are winter and summer plots with few fall food plots in production.

Although there are not many changes for the past couple of years, DNR personnel are working to keep older food plots from becoming shaded in and expanding existing plots when money is available. The wheat that is overseeded is the major effort for the fall, and the plots with clover in them also produce food in the fall. Last year there were about 30 acres planted in wheat for the fall.

Deer at Big Laser have abundant acorns to feed on most years in the fall, and oak woods are where most folks hunt. But Lee says you are not likely to see a big buck walking in open woods during the day. They may feed on the acorns, and use food plots, too, but they retreat to the thickets during hunting hours.

Lee suggests finding a good thicket near acorns or a food plot where the deer are feeding and set up near it to see a buck moving at daylight dusk. Lee also says that if you walk more than 400 yards from an open road to find a place to hunt you are much more likely to have the hunting to yourself.

Moving just a quarter mile away from a road to be able to hunt alone does not seem like too much trouble, but most hunters are not willing to carry a stand that far, much less try to drag or pack out a deer that distance. But you increase your odds of finding a good buck by hunting away from the roads.

Randy hunted away from the roads and said he did not see another hunter in the woods the three days he was hunting. He camped during the hunt and met a lot of nice folks in the camping area, but he had the woods he hunted to himself.

Linda Guy has managed Big Laser for the past 24 years and says they keep 25 percent of the roads closed during hunting season. This allows hunters to walk away from open roads and find a secluded place to hunt. No traffic, including 4-wheelers, is allowed anywhere except on open roads. You can use a wheeled push cart to get your deer out and Linda says that is a popular method.

The way Randy scouted for deer at Big Laser is an excellent way to find your deer there or on any other hunting land. He had never seen the area before, so he got in the woods before the hunt and walked with a hand-held GPS, marking every scrape and rub he found. By studying the GPS he located a good scrape line and set up his portable stand near the middle of it the afternoon before the hunt.

The next morning at about 10:45 Randy used his rattling horns a little, and spotted movement through the trees. He then used a grunt call to lure the deer in and it came toward him, circling to get downwind or uphill of him. When it got within about 60 yards Randy saw it was a good buck, meeting the QDM requirements, and he grunted with his voice to make it stop.

Randy hunts with a shotgun and slugs, something most Georgia hunters have abandoned for rifles. But at 60 yards the slug from his shotgun did the job and Randy got a buck any hunter would be proud of on any hunting land, public or private.

Stacey also scouted for his deer, but he had an advantage. Last fall was his third hunt on Big Laser. He had hunted several other public hunting areas and liked Big Laser best, because of the habitat and QDM regulations. The habitat is excellent with the rolling hills away from the river his favorite place to hunt. He says you can find ridge after ridge to walk up in hardwoods to pines on top then down the other side through hardwoods to a creek or ditch.

He found one a little different, with thick pines running all the way down to the bottom of the hill. The buck he killed was near a scrape line and was in the thickest part of the area. He and his partner had scouted the area and both set up there, and Stacey says working together they felt one had a good chance of getting the buck they were after.

Another thing Stacey likes about Big Laser is the distance between open roads. He says you can get away from the roads and away from other hunters by walking a little while. He likes to get away from the roads to find bigger deer and fewer hunters.

Lee says what Randy and Stacey did to find their deer is the key. Hunters must scout out the area and find signs of a good buck if that is what they want. Walking a short distance from a road and putting up a stand in open woods or near a food plot probably won’t get you a shot at a quality buck. You need to put in some time in the woods to find one.

Some of the areas at Big Laser are difficult to get to. The ridges and ditches running down to the river valley make hunting right on the river tough, and there is one section of the area where you must wade a creek or come up the river to get to it. Hunting areas difficult to reach are more likely to produce a good deer for you.

There are several hunts this year on Big Laser, starting with sign-in archery hunting September 11 – October 7. It is open for quality bucks and anterless deer. On October 9 and 10 there is a sign-in Adult/Child hunt on the area.

Randy plans on hunting Big Laser during archery season this year and use that time to scout the area better for another big buck. Lee suggest coming down and hunting for squirrels and scouting at the same time. You can squirrel hunt there starting August 15th and trying to get a tree rat adds to the fun of the scouting trip.

Use Randy’s and Stacey’s system to hunt Big Laser. Play the odds, apply for all the hunts and be prepared to do some scouting before hunting. Locate a thick area near food and try to find rubs and scrapes if it is during the rut. Set up and stay in the tree all day if possible. You just might have a truck buck entry before the hunt is over.

The QDM regulations are popular but Linda says each year she finds 4 or 5 big bucks killed illegally and left when they don’t meet the requirement. She asks hunters to be sure the buck they see meets requirements, don’t “ground check” your deer after shooting it.

Linda also reminds hunters that the campground is primitive at Big Laser and quiet hours are from 10 PM until 7 AM. That means no generators, no radios and not loud noises. You will get a ticket if you violate quiet hours.

Take Your Kids Fishing

Why Take Your Kids Fishing
By Greg Wagner, Nebraska Game and Parks
from The Fishing Wire

It’s a sport. It’s a hobby. It’s a profession. It’s a pastime. It’s a lifestyle.

Fishing.

As a parent, I can tell you firsthand that spending time fishing with your son or daughter can be a key cog in their emotional development and mental well-being, as well as a contributing factor to what is referred to as a filial bond. And, it continues through the years and never really stops. In fact, it rolls on further with grandchildren.

Noah Wagner, and dad

My young son, Noah Wagner, and dad, your blogger. Photo by Polly Wagner of Omaha, NE.

There are reasons why you should take your son or daughter fishing repetitively from the formative years through adulthood. As a parent, you should understand when you introduce your child to fishing, you are introducing them to far more things than than just “fishing.”

Abundant Woodhouse’s toads offer plenty of amusement for kids while fishing. Photo by Greg Wagner/Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

Consider these 10 very important reasons.

Offers Quality Time

In the fast-paced world of everyday life, it’s not easy to set aside a a bunch of time to spend one-on-one with your son or daughter, especially as they age. Taking a fishing trip, whether it’s an extensive one that will require multiple days or just a morning or evening affair, allows you to focus all of your energy and attention on your child, no matter what age. In order to have a strong parent-child relationship, you have to forge a strong emotional bond with your son or daughter while they’re still young. Fishing together allows the two of you to get to really know one another as individuals, to chat openly and enjoy each other’s company.
Fosters Conversations. The quiet stillness of a lake shoreline or river bank, and the relaxing nature of waiting for fish to bite fosters plenty of conversation, some of which may be awkward to broach elsewhere or with other family members over the dinner table. The natural evolution of your discussions can and do lead to more than one topic you most likely wouldn’t discuss under different circumstances.

Develops a Unique Skill Set

In a society where young folks show their parents the know-how and intricacies of new technology, it can feel like there isn’t much left in terms of skills that adults pass on to their children anymore. Fishing teaches kids the virtue of patience and diligence in an environment where entitlement has become an unrealistic expectation. But, the age-old art of hands-on fishing — tying on an artificial lure, baiting a hook, casting a line and working that lure or bait to try to catch fish is comprised of real skill. Fishing truly is a lifestyle, and it’s one that is difficult to learn from a YouTube video.

Builds Confidence

As your youngster builds their skills and become more successful, they build their self-confidence. This also leads to a stronger self-concept and greater independence. As children see they can be successful in fishing, they carry that confidence over to other parts of their lives through the years like school, sports, work, the military and even developing friendships and other interpersonal relationships.

Makes Memories

As your son or daughter gets older and has less time to spend with you, windows of short periods of time may pop up for fishing, be ready and take advantage of those with them! The memories of your shared fishing trips, whatever duration, are engrained forever. And, when your young folks become adults, those cherished memories come in the form of stories. They will become fodder for pleasant reminiscences, however humorous, serious or embellished.

Creates a Passion for and Appreciation of Nature

For us outdoorsy parents, the opportunity to share a passion for and appreciation of nature with a child is an invaluable one. Instilling a love of the outdoors and a sincere respect for wildlife, fresh air, sunshine and screen-free entertainment is a terrific way to combat the effects of technologically-advanced, indoor-based living where video games rule the day. With fishing, you’re perfectly positioned to pass along the basic tenets of environmental stewardship without seeming like you’re lecturing or preaching. You can guide your son or daughter in the right direction by demonstrating or modeling earth-friendly habits such as picking up litter, gathering discarded fishing line for recycling and properly releasing a fish.
Allows for a Lower-Tech Experience. Even though a Smartphone or iPhone may be carried on your fishing trip to capture or share moments, there are no larger digital screens available in the outdoors. This translates to no video games, big-screen TVs, tablets or computers on the water, which means that for at least for a few hours, a lower-tech good time can be had while still documenting the fishing experience with mobile devices. What better way to limit screen time than to by taking youth where those major screens aren’t available, but still have some modern technology available and good old-fashioned fun on the menu?
Establishes a Shared Hobby. A shared hobby allows you and your offspring a bit of common ground, something that will become even more important as they get older and look for ways to assert their independence. The enjoyment of fishing the two of you share may be one of the few ways you’re able to effectively communicate during the turbulent times of adolescence and young adulthood.

Promotes a Sense of Community

. Many see fishing as an individual activity but what most people don’t comprehend is that beyond the family, there are communities and groups centered around fishing. From the Small Boat Bass Club to the Nebraska Walleye Association to Trout Unlimited, there are a plethora of organizations in Nebraska for young folks and others to join to make new friends, enjoy camraderie and learn more about the specific facets if fishing for various species. There are also a number of fishing tournaments to enter that bring young people and anglers of varying ages together for fun and friendly competition. Just recently, Game and Parks and the B.A.S.S. Federation just hosted the State High School Bass Fishing Tournament held at Lewis and Clark Lake in northeast Nebraska where 18 teams participated.

Encourages a Healthy Lifestyle

Recreational fishing has been shown to be a wonderful stress reliver as well as an ideal way for anyone to relax, especially young people. It can also be seen as an excellent form of exercise, calorie burning and Vitamin D intake. Fishing strengthens the mind of young individuals by requiring the use of visual-spatial and problem solving abilities. It enhances hand-eye coordination and balance. In addition, research indicates that by preparing the catch of the day for supper (legal selective harvest), it typically leads to healthier eating habits. By combining these things together, fishing can contribute to healthier lifestyles, particularly with youth.
My 20-year old son, Noah, realizes that fishing is about catching fish, but much more. Actually, he called me the other day to go fishing with him, so we went. While we were rigging worms on our hooks for channel catfish, I asked him: Is fishing just about catching fish? His response: “Of course it is, dad. I like to catch fish, and big fish, but I’ve also waded into lakes and rivers just to let the water wash around me — casting my line, standing and watching, as frogs plop into the water and dragonflies land on the tip of my rod, while you and I talk, dad.” ” Yeah,” Noah adds, “I’d say fishing is more than just the fish.”

About greg wagner

A native of Gretna, NE, a graduate of Gretna High School and Bellevue University, Greg Wagner currently serves as the Public Information Officer and Manager for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission’s Service Center in Omaha. On a weekly basis, Wagner can be heard on a number of radio stations, seen on local television in Omaha, and on social media channels, creatively conveying natural resource conservation messages as well as promoting outdoor activities and destinations in Nebraska. Wagner, whose career at Game and Parks began in 1979, walks, talks, lives, breathes and blogs about Nebraska’s outdoors. He grew up in rural Gretna, building forts in the woods, hunting, fishing, collecting leaves, and generally thriving on constant outdoor activity. One of the primary goals of his blog is to get people, especially young ones, to have fun and spend time outside!

St.Croix PS60MHF Premier Spinning Rod Review

I like this St Croix spinning rod

Like many fishermen my age, my first rod and reel was a closed face Zebco 202 with a matching rod. It was frustrating to use because the line jammed inside it so much.

When I was 16 I got a new-fangled Mitchell 300 spinning reel with a Garcia rod. It was a heavy outfit, and had problems all it own, but it was a big step up. I used it even after I got into a bass club in 1974, it was one of my two rods and reels back then .

Over the years I replaced it with better spinning rods and reels. But I almost stopped using spinning equipment years ago when I got baitcasting outfits that would handle light baits.

For the past couple of years I have been using one of my old spinning outfit to skip weightless Senkos under docks, but the old rods just were not right. I like a short rod for skipping baits and these were less than six feet long, but the action was too light to wrestle bass past dock posts.

A few weeks ago I got a St.Croix PS60MHF Premier six foot medium heavy fast action spinning rod. It is just what I wanted. The fast action tip skips a light bait easily, but the medium heavy weight gives me the control I need to keep bass from hanging me up.

To clarify some terms:

Rod length is pretty obvious. But the other terms can be confusing.

Rod action is how fast a rod bends from the tip. A fast action rod has a light tip that bends easily. A medium action bends less, and a heavy action bends little. Lighter actions are best for lighter baits. For heavier baits, heavier action is needed.

Rod weight is how stiff the rod is. A light weight rod is usually lighter in heaviness, but mainly it bends a lot, often from the tip to the butt, in a parabolic arch. A heavy weight rod will bend little even at the tip. Again, a lighter weight rod is better for lighter baits but the heavier the weight is, the more “backbone” you have to control the fish.

The six foot length is short compared to the seven foot rods many use, but I like shorter rods for skipping. They have a little less leverage, but many of my cast are sidearm with rod tip point toward the water, and the shorter length helps me avoid hitting the boat and the water on my casts.

I have used this rod in several tournaments and caught enough fish on it to know it is just what I wanted. It helped me catch fish at Sinclair and place 4th in the Flint River Bass Club tournament.

The Premier Family of rods come in both spinning and casting, with various lengths, actions and weights to meet most needs, and sell for about $140.00

Disclaimer – I got a discount when I bought this rod. But no discount is big enough to make me say something good about a product I don’t use or like, and I would never reccomend something I do not use with success to anyone else.

Boat Control Tools

Boat Control Tools Keep Anglers in the Bite
By John Geiger
from The Fishing Wire

If you have a boat with multiple modern outboards, you have a lot of options when it comes to joystick control of your vessel for docking or tight maneuvering. Joysticks are particularly great for sidling up to the dock. But what about solving the challenges anglers have setting the right drift to keep lures in the zone, or trolling ultra slowly to keep live baits alive and active? Some marine companies are ramping up boat-control tools that will simply help catch more fish.

Yamaha joystick system

The Yamaha joystick system with SetPoint not only makes docking a no-brainer in multi-outboard rigs, it’s also a powerful fishing tool for holding precise position offshore despite wind, waves and current, and can also control trolling speeds at much lower levels than is possible with conventional controls. (John Geiger Photo)

For more than a decade we’ve had joystick helm controls like Mercury’s BowHook, SeaStar’s Heading Hold and more recently Yamaha’s SetPoint. To see these systems in action is a front-row seat to the future of boating. In fact, it’s astounding to see each motor working independently, changing direction and throttle as if they had minds of their own. Yet the outboards work in unison with each other, tapping GPS technology and advanced system integration to keep the boat in a position or in a certain heading despite wind, waves and currents.

Like the other companies, Yamaha has offered similar tools with its Helm Master and SetPoint trio of boat-control modes — StayPoint, FishPoint and DriftPoint. But recently, Yamaha upped the game and brought another boat-control tool, a function called Pattern Shift, to the SetPoint array. It lets the boater troll below standard in-gear speeds. When set, it automatically bumps the throttle in and out of gear, as a captain would do to create a snail’s-pace drift over productive structure or waters. Under some conditions, the system can troll at 1/2 mph or less. You can actually set it to be in gear 90 percent of the time and out of gear 10 percent, or in gear 10 percent and out of gear 90 percent or any 10 percent increment in between.

It’s frustrating to try to quickly fish a hot spot—say a small reef outcropping– before the boat floats over the top of it and past it. It’s obvious that companies like Yamaha are getting into the minds of captains to find out what they need to position their boats perfectly despite groundswell, tides, winds and current. And the systems are basically intuitive. They’re very simple to operate.

How much does a system like this cost? That’s not easy to answer on a new boat because it’s often standard equipment on more fully equipped models. As an option, however, you might expect to pay nearly as much as you would for an additional outboard.

ON THE WATER

On a recent fishing trip in the Chesapeake Bay with Captain Shannon Pickens, a longtime guide on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, I saw one of the Yamaha systems in action.

Captain Pickens used his Garmin fish finder to locate a school of resident striped bass on an oyster bar in about 30 feet of water.

“I marked them and then moved off to deeper water to drift up to it,” said Pickens, who is based on Tilghman Island.

But the wind was coming from the south against the outgoing tide. If he simply drifted over the structure, the bow probably would have swung to port with the current, and anglers would have been creeping up the port side gunnels toward the bow. Pickens likes to keep his anglers around the stern of the boat, where there is more room to maneuver in the cockpit.

Summer stripers on Chesapeake Bay are not usually huge, but there are plenty of them and they put up a spirited fight on light gear.

“I put the bow into the wind, set Pattern Shift and let them vertical jig over the zone from the stern,” he said. “They might not know it’s the system doing a lot of the work, but they’ll notice more fish on their line.”

Pickens could have chosen to manually bump his binnacle throttle to keep the port Yamaha F300 coming in and out of gear while also keeping clients safe, watching for other vessels and all the things a captain does when there are six people aboard dropping lines. But Pickens chose to use Pattern Shift. It kept the boat in the zone longer by controlling the heading (bow quartered away from the wind) and the speed (about 2 knots north to south) with a 50-50 ratio of forward-thrust-to-neutral bumps to let anglers work the bar slowly and naturally. And that’s one of the best features of Pattern Shift — the bumping and very low rpm, especially when coupled with Yamaha’s innovative Shift Dampening System, created little noise under the hull.

Pickens said these fish are highly pressured and shut down with prop wash or noise from above. The crew was able to keep rods tight on the resident summer stripers when other boats in the area were watching and waiting.

Non-migrating striped bass, also called rockfish in this part of the world, will take live baits, trolled umbrella rigs or plastics. Pickens had his crew throwing artificials on light tackle: Z-Man scented jerk shad and paddle-tail swimbaits in the 6- to 8-inch range on 1-ounce lead jigs. The 12-pound fluorocarbon leader was tied to 10-pound braid with a Uni-knot. Hot bait colors were purple, white and electric chicken, a combo of chartreuse on top and green on the bottom.

Thanks in part to the impressive SetPoint position-control system from Yamaha, we had brisk action on summer rockfish. We caught none of the giants for which the area is famed—Bloody Point, where we were fishing, produced the 67-pound, 8-ounce state record, and occasionally turns out fish approaching 50 pounds—but we kept busy with stripers around the lower end of the 19-inch slot, and gained new respect for the ways technology can affect our fishing.

St Croix Rod Review – Rod Weight Makes A Difference

My favorite all around rod –
Croix Avid Mediaum Fast seven foot rod – AVC70MF

Image from St. Croix Rods

Fishermen have their favorite rods, it is largely a matter of personal preferences. My favorites are St. Croix Rods. They have a model for any fishing need, and I have several in different models, weights and actions.

I won a St. Croix rod at a tournament in Wisconsin back in the early 1990s and fell in love with it. The Avid model seven-foot, medium weight, fast action AVC70MF is the best all-around rod I use. It works well for topwater baits, crankbaits and spinnerbaits. I also use it successfully for small swim baits and underspins.

The next year I bought two more Avids but didn’t pay careful attention and ordered the medium heavy weigh AVC70MHF, a lucky accident. I used them for throwing the shaky head and jig and they were perfect. I seldom lost a fish on any of my three rods.

I broke the first rod and St. Croix replaced it under warranty for $50. They did not even ask how I broke a two-year old rod, but I am sure I hit it on the side of the boat working a topwater plug based on where it broke, cracking it.

I managed to lose one of the second two I bought, a whole nother story of my stupidity, and ordered two more of the medium action. Since I was mostly fishing shaky heads and small jigs, one of them was dedicated to the small jigs. I kept fishing a shaky head on the medium heavy weight rod.

After losing several fish on the jig, I quit throwing it for a time. I finally realized all the fish I lost were on the medium weight and had not lost fish on the medium heavy rod fishing a shaky head, I ordered another Avid AVC70MHF medium heavy weight fast action rod a few months ago. Since then I have not lost a fish on the jig, including a 4 pounder at Guntersville and many other keeper fish.

Rod weight makes a difference! The slightly heavier weight helps set the hook on the jig and shaky head where the lighter weight is fine for other baits. I fish both shaky head and small jigs on those two rods every tournament now and use the medium weight for most of my other baits.

To clarify some terms:

Rod length is pretty obvious. But the other terms can be confusing.

I also have a Mojo Crankbait rod and it is perfect for casting big crankbaits, and small ones for that matter. Jamie Koza, owner of The Dugout Tackle shop in Atlanta and well-known tournament fisherman, told me it is the best crankbait rod he has ever used, and I agree. I bought the Mojo Crankbait rod at a Georgia Outdoor Writers association auction, and got it for a very good price.

St Croix rods are not cheap but are all quality rods with a great warranty. But they make a series for most any budget, from their Bass X at about $100 to the very top end Legend Family, made for the deadly serious bass fisherman, at around $420. The Avid Family model I love is about $180 – second only to the Legend, and their Mojo Family is about $130. Their Premier series is about $120.

St Croix makes quality spinning and casting in all the above models and have models for saltwater, salmon and fly and even ice fishing. I have a St Croix Premier spinning rod and five Avid casting rods and the Mojo now, and have ordered a Legend jig rod – just gotta try it out.

Disclaimer – I get a discount from St. Croix but would never use so many of them – at any price – if they did not work for me. I would recommend any fisherman try the St Croix rods in the model and action that they like.

Climbing Trees

Climbing trees in my youth was as natural as it must be for young monkeys. Every tree offered an opportunity, and a challenge. Some, with low limbs were easy. Other required skill in “shinnying” up the trunk with arms and legs wrapped around it to the first branches.

All that climbing was not without danger. I will never forget a naturalist on an Alaskan cruise asking us, as we watched mountain goats on impossibly steep cliffs, if we knew the main cause of death for them. The answer? Gravity.

Gravity offered dangers but fun, too. I got a too close look at the danger one day while climbing a big sweetgum that acted as a corner fence post on our hog pen. I was about 15 feet up when, reaching for a limb, I missed my hold and fell backwards.

Landing on my back, it took me a few seconds to figure out I was not hurt. Then I looked up. I was lying within inches of a vertical 2×6 that helped support the fence. The upper end that my back barely missed was jagged and pointed. A little more to that side and I would have been skewered.

We had fun with gravity, too. Many times, two or three of us would go to the woods with our hatchets, pick a sapling 20 or so feet tall, and one of us would climb near the top. The others would hack away at the base until the tree fell.

Riding the tree down was an early carnival ride for us. We always tried to stay on the upper side so the tree hit the ground first, but that was hard to do since our weight turned it so we fell first. Somehow, we never got hurt doing this. I guess the tree limbs cushioned our impact.

We climbed to make tree houses, attaching ropes to pull up boards, hammers and nails. On a good tree we used limbs to reach the tree house after it was built, on others we nailed short boards to the trunk to use as steps. Ladders were just too easy, and they were hard to come by.

When I started deer hunting I bought a small metal platform with a chain that went around the tree trunk and an arm that went down to brace it against the trunk. I spent many hours standing or sitting on that 16-inch square of metal many feet off the ground.

Just like for tree houses, some trees gave me limbs to climb to where I wanted to attach my stand. On some, like straight trunk pines, I nailed boards for steps. Its a miracle I never fell from it since I used no safety rope.

When I was 16, our youth leader at church, Mr. Ed
Henderson, who also managed the McDuffie Public Fishing Area and loved to hunt, saw a new-fangled deer stand in a magazine and copied it. He made them for many of us and I still have mine.

It was a board with iron bars that supported the bottom and went up at the back. Angled arms attached to the front of the bottom bar and went past the back, where angled flat iron made a “V”. The back of the board had metal strips across it in an inverted, matching “V”.

You could take a bolt out of one side of the arm, put it around a tree and reattach the bolt. The downward pressure on the board while standing or sitting on it clamped it against the tree. You slipped your boots into straps on the platform, reached up and hugged the tree trunk, bent your knees up to pull up the stand, then repeated.

It was easy to climb a pine or other straight trunk tree, in my youth. This was the beginning of modern climbing stands that work on the same principal but have two parts, one to raise up then move the bottom part with your feet. You can even do a sit down, stand up, sit down, over and over to climb in some of them.

They are much easier to use, a good thing since I no longer have the arm or leg strength of my youth and cannot hug the tree or raise the bottom of the old, heavy stand with my legs.

The older guys I worked in construction with the summer between high school and college, did not believe my tales about the stand. So, I took it to work with me one day to show them. Unfortunately, the only thing to climb in the lumber yard was a telephone pole. I easily went up it about 15 feet, amazing them and proving my tales.

Unfortunately, the telephone pole was hard, without the soft bark of a tree for the stand to bite into. When at the top of my climb, the stand suddenly lost its bite and I slid to the ground, skinning my arms and legs and ripping my shirt.

But that same day, they all started making their own copies of the stand!

The first deer I killed when I was 18 in the fall of 1968 was from that stand. I got so excited after shooting the small eight-point buck that I got in a hurry. I vaguely remember jumping the last few feet to the ground to go check the deer.

When I confirmed the deer was dead and went back to get my stand, I could barely reach the bottom of it with the tip of my gun barrel to make it slide the rest of the way down to the ground. I had jumped from at least 10 feet high!

I doubt many youth still climb trees, its too dangerous for most parents to allow it. But they are missing fun, too.

What Is A Fishing Hideaway on Tampa Bay?

A Fishing Hideaway on Tampa Bay
By Frank Sargeant, Editor
from The Fishing Wire

Fishing Tampa Bay

The vast estuaries and tidal creeks near Little Harbor and the Little Manatee River, in Tampa Bay’s South Shore area, provide endless spots where kayakers and flats boat anglers can easily find sea trout, redfish and snook. (Photo Credit Power-Pole)

It’s no secret that Florida is being overwhelmed by new residents—the population now approaches 22 million—as well as by the 124 million who visit there annually. Roads are jammed, housing developments are gobbling up thousands of acres of natural habitat each year and finding locations where you can “get away from it all” is growing way more difficult.

As the song goes, we have paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

But there are still a few hideaways left that reflect a time when this state truly was a natural paradise and the weather, let’s face it, is unbeatable, especially when the snow flies up north. I was reminded of that by a visit back to Tampa Bay’s South Shore region not too long ago.

The South Shore, stretching down the southeast side of Tampa Bay roughly from the town of Apollo Beach to Terra Ceia, has no white sand beaches and no emerald green sea, and that is essentially what has saved it so far.

It’s a land of coastal creeks and estuaries, mangrove and saltmarsh shores, and through the heart of it runs the appropriately-named Little Manatee River, a designated “Outstanding Florida Water” that is home not only to lots of manatees, but also plenty of snook, redfish, tarpon, largemouth bass, alligators, otters, bald eagles and a bit of everything else that used to make Florida, Florida. There are three state aquatic preserves here—the wild lands and estuaries will remain that way, permanently.

As with most areas where there’s good habitat, the fish and wildlife thrive here; the South Shore is one of the premiere fishing areas on all of Florida’s west coast. It’s home to the “big four” of Florida inshore fishing, snook, tarpon, trout and redfish, sometimes in amazing numbers. And it’s far enough inland that it was minimally affected by the long-lasting red tide that devastated many coastal areas last year.

Because it’s Florida, there’s good fishing every month of the year, though the mix of species and their locations change with the seasons. Tarpon and snook are primarily tropical fish and action for them is best April through October, while trout and redfish like cooler water—best times are typically October to March, though spawning reds sometimes make a push in late August and September.

This is all inshore action, which means you can get at the fish in a skiff, a bassboat, even a kayak if you keep an eye on the weather. And if you don’t have your own boat, there are rentals available.

At Little Harbor Watersports in Ruskin, for example, you can rent a center console for $225 for a half day, $325 for a full day, and head out on the bay with a very good shot at catching plenty of spotted sea trout, simply by drifting over grass flats at depths of 4 to 10 feet and bouncing a quarter-ounce shrimp-tail jig on bottom or drifting along with a DOA Shrimp (or a live shrimp) suspended 3 feet under a popping cork that you give an occasional “chug” to stir up interest. You’ll catch plenty of ladyfish, black sea bass and assorted other critters to keep up your interest, as well.

Another alternative is to rent a kayak at Little Harbor and explore the canals that lead back into the development. In winter, these canals are sometimes loaded with redfish, trout and the occasional snook, while in summer they are home to baby tarpon anywhere from 1 to 3 feet long. (It can be buggy back here on a calm summer morning, though—load up with high-DEET repellent.)

Snook can be a challenge to locate and catch, but there are lots of them in the South Shore area and those who fish live sardines regularly connect with big ones.

If you’re more serious about fishing, you can hire a guide—rates around $500 for two–who will put you on the area’s premier gamefish, the snook. These fish have been described as “largemouth bass on steroids” (by me, among others) and they really put on a show in the mangrove creeks and oystery potholes where they’re often found. Size ranges from 3 pounds upward . . . way upward. It’s not uncommon to hook up with a fish weighing 10 to 15 pounds while fishing with a guide who uses live sardines to fool the lunkers, and trying to control one of these beasts in the confines of a narrow creek overhung with mangrove trees and surrounded by sharp oyster shells is the angling experience of a lifetime.

Or, if you’re into big game fishing, you can also enjoy that experience without ever leaving sight of shore here—from late April through October, South Shore waters are loaded with tarpon ranging in weight from 50 to 150 pounds. You might get lucky and connect with one on your own by fishing deep bends in the river or in the canals around Little Harbor (fish where you see them rolling with live pinfish or sardines) but best bet is to hire a guide, who will know where the schools are hanging out, usually south of the river.

Jumbo tarpon are abundant in Tampa Bay from April through October, including lots of fish weighing 100 pounds and up. Best way to connect is to hire a guide, who has the right gear and knows where to find them. (Frank Sargeant Photo)
You can catch the juvenile tarpon on heavy bass tackle in the rivers, but for the adults, heavy spinning gear and 50-pound-test braid is the minimum—your guide will have the appropriate gear, and will also take the worry out of handling one of these silver giants at boatside. (Tarpon are a catch-and-release species, but you’ll have a chance for plenty of photos with your trophy before she swims away free to fight again.) One of my favorite guides for this pursuit is Captain Chet Jennings, who has been at it for decades. His website also has some interesting video showing the backcountry here; www.fishintampa.com.

About Little Harbor

Accommodations on the river are understandably scarce—the terrain and environmental regulations limit development beyond basic residential properties—but one first-class location is Harborside Suites, at Little Harbor just north of where the Little Manatee runs into Tampa Bay.

Little Harbor is a good home base for a South Shore visit not only because it’s in the heart of some of Tampa Bay’s best fishing, but also because it’s got all the amenities to keep the rest of the family happy while you fish. Tennis courts, swimming pools, fitness centers, several waterfront restaurants, hiking areas, SUP, kayak and jet ski rentals plus a half-mile of sand beach should keep the crew well entertained.

The live music at the Tiki Bar overlooking the bay is a big draw at sundown every evening, and if you’re so inclined they even have karaoke nights on occasion. There’s also a waterfront firepit for after-sundown partying. And the waterfront rooms all have full kitchenettes, equipped right down to that all important coffee maker.

Sundowns at Little Harbor are not only beautiful, but they mark a good time to slip out on the water for a few casts — there’s always a bite at sunrise and sunset. (Frank Sargeant Photo)
It’s not uncommon for manatees to swim right into the harbor in front of the resort and nibble at moss on the boat fenders, and on my last visit a mother bottle-nosed dolphin was training her offspring to catch mullet among the docked yachts, as well. If you’re into bird watching, there’s a large preserve less than a mile down the shore where you’ll see just about every shorebird Florida has to offer, including the strikingly pink roseate spoonbills, sometimes by the dozens, plus lots of ospreys, egrets, great blue herons and in winter the occasional bald eagle.

For details, visit www.staylittleharbor.com or call 800-327-2773.

Trying To Catch Bass at Clarks Hill

August 10 and 11th, nine members and guests of the Flint River Bass Club fish a miserably hot two-day tournament at Clarks Hill. At least the fishing was tough. In 18 hours of casting we landed 41 12-inch keeper bass weighing about 65 pounds.

There were three limits and one fisherman didn’t catch a keeper in two days. But there were some good fish, five weighed more than three pounds each.

Raymond English, fishing as Niles Murray’ guest, won with ten weighing 17.11 pounds. Niles placed second with nine keepers weighing 14.51 pounds, Travis Weatherly was third with seven at 10.24 pounds and Chuck Croft came in fourth with six weighing 6.66 pounds. Jerry Ragen had big fish with a 4.39 pound largemouth.

I thought I had found some fish on deep rock piles and caught two Saturday, including one close to three pounds, and lost another one that felt as big as the three pounder. But that was it, two fish all day. And Sunday I missed one bite and had another good fish pull off the dropshot worm. No fish for me after eight hot hours of trying Sunday.

Lake Chautauqua

Take a Fall Chautauqua to Lake Chautauqua
By Frank Sargeant, Editor
from the Fishing Wire

Catch muskie like this

For a relatively small lake, Chautauqua has an amazing number of huge muskies like this one, caught by anglers fishing with Muddy Creek Fishing Guides. (Photo Credit Muddy Creek Fishing Guides)

Upstate New York is an overlooked jewel when it comes to opportunities for fishing, hunting, hiking, camping and outdoors enjoyment, as I was reminded in a visit to Chautauqua Lake not long ago.

If “Chautauqua” sounds familiar, it’s because the idea of a summer getaway camp pretty much got its start here on the banks of the 20-mile long lake before spreading nationwide. The original was a sort of tent camp, church-linked but full of all sorts of diversions and entertainments that made it a huge draw for folks who couldn’t stand the noise and the heat of northeastern cities in summer.

These days, the original Chautauqua has grown into an upscale summer resort complex, still church-linked, but for outdoorsmen the lure of the lake and the creek, both also called Chautauqua, may be stronger than that of the camp.

Fall Steelhead

Chautauqua Creek connects to Lake Erie, and is a route for the steelhead that are stocked every year in “steelhead alley” by Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. In late fall, steelies by the hundreds come up the creek. The typical fish averages 4 to 10 pounds and is 20 to 30 inches long—these are a long way from being small-stream brook trout. Some fish over 15 pounds also make the journey. In the narrow confines of the fast-flowing creek—it averages maybe 30 feet wide—they put up an amazing battle. (The original word “Chautauqua” meant “jumping fish” in Iroquois, now more appropriate for the creek than ever.)

While most Chautauqua Creek steelhead are in the 5 to 10 pound range, a few real slammers make the journey up the creek each year, as well. (Photo Credit Trout Unlimited)
The creek winds its way for about 15 miles, sometimes through a deep gorge, before emptying into Lake Erie, providing plenty of spots for walk-in fishing. It’s well worth the walk; the New York DEC reports the creek has one of the highest catch rates in the state for fall steelies. Catches of four or five fish per day per angler are not uncommon when the run is on. Here’s a state map showing open areas: https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/fish_marine_pdf/chautauquacreek.pdf

Most anglers use medium-light spinning gear with 6- to 10-pound test mono, and fish salmon eggs in small nylon sacks, four or five eggs to a sack, suspended a couple feet under a small float. Some say the fish have color preferences on certain days—white, yellow and pink are among the favored colors. The fish can also be caught on flyrod streamers and nymphs—local shops have plenty of successful patterns.

One of the Nation’s Top Musky Lakes

Chautauqua Lake is noted as one of the nation’s top musky lakes. It’s about 8 miles south of the shore of Lake Erie and due east of the city of Erie, Pennsylvania. It’s a narrow lake about 20 miles long, with two distinct sections separated by a highway bridge.

The south end is relatively shallow, with an average depth of 10 to 15 feet; the north end above Bemus Point has plenty of water over 30 feet deep and holes to more than 70 feet. The lake is mostly fed by springs and rain so the water is clean, but there’s enough fertility to produce heavy weed growth—great fish habitat–along the shallows. In fact, many areas are too thick to fish near shore in late summer, but get out to the edge where the weeds fall away—a kayak, canoe or rental skiff will easily get you there–and you’ll find the fish waiting.

The lake is famed for big muskies, unusual in a fairly small lake, but the combination of abundant panfish and other forage and plenty of weed cover has continued to turn out big fish for many years. The lake is known not only for size—the lake record is a 54” fish that went 46 pounds—but also for numbers.

Anglers who know the water and the tactics regularly catch three or four muskies of 40 inches in a day, an unheard of score in most musky waters where one fish per week per boat is considered “hot” fishing. NY DEC keeps the action going by stocking some 13,000 muskies 8 to 10 inches long each year, and there’s also a one fish limit, with minimum size 40 inches. (Most musky anglers release their catch in any case—a musky is too valuable to catch only once, as they say.)

Most anglers troll or cast large wobbling plugs to connect with the giant muskies of Chautauqua Lake, though some also drift live baits. (Frank Sargeant Photo)
Trolling large wobblers is the favored tactic, but drifting big live baits also gets them, as does casting the weedbeds with large plugs. Needless to say, heavy gear is a must—most use stout baitcasters with 65-pound-test or heavier braid and a braided stainless steel leader to prevent cutoffs. The season is from the last Saturday in May to November 30.

Mike Sperry at Chautauqua Reel Outdoors in Lakewood, on the lake’s southwest shore, is an expert on catching the lake’s big muskies, and has one of the best selections of big musky lures you’ll ever find in a local tackle shop; www.chautauquareeloutdoors.com. Muddy Creek Fishing Guides is also among the well-known guide operations on the lake; www.mcfishinguides.com.

Bass and Walleyes

Chautauqua Lake also ranks among the top bass lakes in New York State according to NYDEC. It’s particularly loaded with largemouths due to the abundant weed cover.

All the usual bass tactics work, including fishing the weedlines and docks at dawn and dusk with topwaters. During the brighter hours, swimbaits, plastic worms and jigs on deeper scattered grass do the job.

The lake also has a good population of large smallmouth bass, particularly in the south basin—best bet for smallies is to fish live crawfish or minnows just off bottom on rocky points and other hard structure, though the fish move into the shallows and readily attack topwaters during the post-spawn. New York, like many northern states, has a closed season for bass. The open period is from the third Saturday in June through Nov. 30.

There’s a good fall bite of large walleyes, with most caught drifting with jigs or worm harnesses tipped with chubs or other minnows at depths of 25 to 40 feet. Walleyes are maybe the best eating fish in fresh water—the limit is five daily over 15 inches and the season stays open all summer, fall and winter, closing briefly in the spring spawn.

Where to Stay

Chautauqua Lake and Chautauqua Creek are small-town and agricultural country and there are not a lot of quality places to stay close by, but one that stands out is the year-old Chautauqua Harbor Hotel in Celoron.

Built in cooperation with the state’s Regional Economic Development Council and Chautauqua County on prime waterfront that had been vacant for some 40 years due to economic malaise in the area, part of the hotel’s mission is to bring jobs and prosperity to this less-developed area of the state.

The resort covers some 9 acres on the southeast end of the lake at Celoron. It’s got 1100 feet of shoreline, most fishable from shore, as well as a boat harbor, docks, open-air bar and a very nice restaurant.

The docks at Chautauqua Harbor, stretching some 1100 feet, provide lots of places to wet a line at dawn as well as to pull up a boat for lunch or dinner. (Photo Credit Chautauqua Harbor Hotel.)
They provide free coffee starting at 5 a.m., a big plus for anglers. Guide packages, including breakfast, are available through the hotel. They have indoor and outdoor pools for mom and the kids, a great fitness center and lots more; www.thechautauquaharborhotel.com.

A side trip to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, N.Y.—childhood home of Lucille Ball—is just minutes away, and well worthwhile. Check out the tourism bureau for more; https://www.tourchautauqua.com. (Dave Barus is the resident fishing expert at the bureau and will be glad to steer you towards the hot bite.)

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