2021 Articles
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It's Trout Time
by CRAIG RITCHIEFor a lot of anglers in the Midwest, April is one of those months where there's just too much going on at once. The spring crappie bite is at its peak, steelhead runs in rivers tributary to the Great Lakes are in full swing, inshore trolling for salmon and lake trout is about as good as it gets and ...
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Chasing Early Season Panfish Using Underwater Video
by JASON HALFENUnderwater video is an incredibly powerful tool for any angler. In this video, The Technological Angler explains why two Aqua-Vu cameras are particularly useful when chasing early season panfish. Cameras featured in this video: Aqua-Vu Micro Revolution 5.0 Aqua-Vu HD7i Pro Gen 2...
March 2021
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A Northern Recipe For Southern Smallies
by JASON HALFEN"I've been waiting a long time to be able to do this in a tournament down here," was the phrase repeated many times by Shimano Pro Jeff "Gussy" Gustafson as he described a decidedly Canadian approach to chasing smallmouth bass. "This is something we do back home all the time, especially as smallies ...
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Crankin' Up Early Season Bass
by SHANE BEILUEWith the warmth of spring and increasingly longer daylight hours comes the annual movement of bass from their winter depths into shallow spawning flats. As the water temps first begin climbing, bass will congregate within sight of their eventual spawning beds, feeding aggressively along shallows po...
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Humminbird MEGA 360 Imaging
by JASON HALFENHumminbird MEGA 360 Imaging is an incredibly powerful tool, providing an all-encompassing, 360-degree view of the underwater world with unprecedented levels of clarity and detail. With the new Universal Mount for the 360 Imaging device, we can now add the power of MEGA 360 Imaging to just about any ...
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Fishing The Toyko Rig
by SHANE BEILUEBass anglers are tinkerers by nature, always looking to build a better mousetrap in the pursuit of catching bass. Such was the case with the release of the VMC Tokyo Rig, a unique hook and weight configuration originally designed for punching matted vegetation. The rig consists of a hook attached ...
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Sunset Country Awaits Your Return
by DENA VICKThe sights, sounds, and experiences of Sunset Country are unmatched anywhere in the world. This place stirs the soul of every angler, hunter, paddler and adventurer who casts a line, swings a gun, or sets up camp among its pristine, pine-studded shorelines. Whether it's escaping from the hustle ...
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Getting The Jump On Early Spring Steelhead
by CRAIG RITCHIENo question about it - if you live in the Midwest then there's no better opportunity to catch steelhead than March and April, when the fish leave the safety of the Great Lakes and migrate en masse up tributary streams on their annual spawning run. This is no secret - a fact borne out by the crowd...
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Read The Water For More Walleyes
by JASON HALFENOne of the fundamental skills of a good river walleye angler is the ability to read water and determine where fish are likely to hold. Chief among these fishy locations are current seams - places where fast flowing water meets slower water. Whenever flows are moderate or high - like when the snow me...
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Late Ice Panfish
by MIKE FRISCHAs we enter the last few weeks of winter, some anglers have already stowed their ice fishing gear and are preparing for open water. That may be a mistake, particularly for those anglers who enjoy catching panfish like crappies and bluegills. Right now, these fish are vacating some of the deep basi...
February 2021
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Beat the Mid-Winter Ice Blues
by ERIC BRANDRIETNo matter if it is open water or the current ice season, mid-season can be the peak of angler frustration. Hope that the early ice bite will continue fades as the calendar reaches the end of January or early February. Decreased fish metabolism, changes in the food chain and frequent weather fronts...
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Don't Wait To Buy A New Boat
by CRAIG RITCHIEOne of the big surprizes of 2020 was the massive surge in boat sales as people emerged from Covid-19 lockdowns looking for new ways to enjoy family time together outside. Demand for things like boats was so high last year that by mid-summer, some dealerships actually ran out of inventory. Yet peo...
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What do fish look like?
by JASON HALFENContemporary anglers are blessed with a dazzling array of sonar and imaging tools to help them find success on the water. At the same time, we need to know what we're looking for when using tools like Humminbird Side Imaging, Down Imaging, and traditional 2D sonar to locate fish. In this video, Dr. ...
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Pound Sand For More Jumbos
by JASON HALFENFew fish captivate me like jumbo perch. I love chasing tigers in early summer as they gorge on emerging mayflies. I structure my fall vacations around peak cold water perch bites as schools of jumbos corral unsuspecting shiners in skinny water. But nothing - and I mean nothing - beats the thrill of ...
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January 2021
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Hunting for Big Perch Through the Ice
by ERIC BRANDRIETThe "Hunt" for BIG perch is on the minds of most ice wranglers here in the South Dakota prairie pothole/glacial lake region as first ice is formed. How are the biggest perch found and caught every winter? Drilling holes on the right water, understanding their behavior and having a variety of baits...
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Proven Patterns For Hardwater Largemouth
by JASON HALFENWhen most anglers think about largemouth bass, their thoughts turn to the warmth of summer, lush green growth above the water's surface and below, bone-jarring strikes and tail-walking fights. Yet, as snow blankets the landscape and open water recedes to a distant memory, those same finned adversari...
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Dead Sticking Walleye
by JASON MITCHELLSticking a lively minnow in front of fish hasn't really changed a whole lot over time. With all the technology, sonar, map chips and other tools to help us catch fish... there are times each winter when we have to go back to the basics. The mantra lately has been a power fishing approach where we ...
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Blade Bait Fishing for Winter Bass
by KATHERINE FIELDSome of my favorite fishing all year occurs during the winter. There is little fishing pressure on the lake, pleasure boaters are long gone; the cooler water allows me to search those deeper humps and points for winter-time bass. While the colder water temperatures demand a slower fishing presentat...
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For Love Of Hardwater Trout
by JASON HALFENTrout represent one of the most unique ice fishing opportunities throughout the ice belt. Unlike most of the typical hardwater targets - especially walleye, pike, and panfish - trout sustain very high activity levels beneath the ice. Indeed, as a group of coldwater species, trout thrive in chilly wa...
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Early Winter Crappie Tactics
by CRAIG RITCHIEWinter is not my favorite fishing season, if I'm perfectly honest about it. I like to cast, and I like to fish in moving water, working with the currents and solving the challenges they always seem to present - things that are pretty difficult to do when the water is hard enough to walk on. But ...
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Fine Tuning For More Walleyes
by BOB JENSENAvid ice angler John Crane and I talked on the phone recently. He has been doing a lot of ice fishing in his home area of north central Minnesota and on this particular day he had been after walleyes. After my usual questions of "wadja' catch" and "wadja catch'em on", the conversation got a little...
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