Hunting
Dog tracking made easy
A few years back I had a scare I don’t ever want to repeat. I was hunting pheasants with Brit, a Brittany I acquired through the PAWS rescue group in Austin, Texas, when she disappeared. […]
Month: May 2012
As Big As they Grow
Crappie bite started early
A warmer-than-normal late winter/early spring this year sped everything up, didn’t it? I mean the azaleas and the roses bloomed really early. The dogwoods were almost a month early displaying their beautiful color. […]
Columns
Managing the data — Part 3
The pursuit by a hunter of trail-camera photo information regarding whitetail buck activity can be a labor intensive project and, as a result, the end product is absolutely what you make it to be.
My personal trail-camera goals revolve primarily around monitoring and documenting buck presence and movement activity on my hunting property before, during and after each deer-hunting season. […]
Bass Fishing
Two faces of Lake Ferguson in May
Lake Ferguson, an oxbow off the Mississippi River near Greenville, will have high water up in the willows on the north side of the lake if our area continues to have spring rains like we’ve been experiencing.
But if the Mississippi River doesn’t rise, you still can catch bass at Lake Ferguson if you’ll fish the other side of the lake and use different tactics. […]
Columns
Feed deer now with spring plots
May is a good time for planting spring wildlife food plots for white-tailed deer. There are also spin-off residual benefits for other game like wild turkey, quail, dove and even small game like rabbits. […]
Freshwater Fishing
Mississippi walleye
From mid February and into March, nighttime campfires once dotted the banks of the upper Tombigbee River and major Tombigbee River tributary streams like Bull Mountain, Buttahatchie, Luxapallila and Yellow Creek where anglers fished for walleye on their spawning migration.
Yes, walleye. […]
General
The Ruger SR40c
A recent concealed carry class included a newlywed couple. The young woman was an attractive emergency room nurse with a winning smile, long brown hair and a dad who was a retired federal law enforcement officer.
While she shot her handgun very well, the joke between her and her husband was the target that came home with her better have bragging-sized groups. […]
Bass Fishing
Get the drop
When bass respond to factors such as weather or fishing pressure by playing hard to get, anglers can often tempt those tough bites with a dropshot. The basic rig is pretty simple, and the action, well, there’s not much to it. […]
Bass Fishing
Kermit commandos
Pete Ponds spotted a flash and swirl that sent a school of small fry skittering across the top of the water. The Bassmaster Elite Series pro instantly sailed a Scumdog Walker Frog past the small fry and started working the lure back in a walk the dog pattern.
Just as it passed over the small fry, a bass crushed the lure and headed down toward deep water. Ponds dropped his rod tip, reeled in the slack and snapped the rod back, driving the Owner hooks deep into the jaws of the lunker bass and turning it toward the boat. […]
Content
Crappie Hotspot Series – Pickwick Lake
In the early 1970s, a young bass angler by the name of Bill Dance, hosting his own TV show on national television, brought Pickwick Lake to the forefront of American anglers’ attention.
Each week, his television audience tuned in to watch Dance battle huge smallmouth bass from the high-bluffed reservoir. Quickly becoming the authority on fishing instruction, Dance couldn’t wait to introduce the country to Pickwick guide Roger Gant, a man he called “the best crappie fishing guide in the country.”
Several years later, the combined influence of these two fishing icons found their mark, leaving a lasting impression on a part-time fishing guide. […]
Bass Fishing
Lipstick on a frog
Double nickels, 55 — that’s the water temperature mark that Jackson angler Alfred Williams eagerly awaits each spring. That, he said, is the threshold for his favorite largemouth bass tactic — frogging.
An old-school bass buster with plenty of big fish to his credit, Williams knows that a hollow-belly frog like his favored Snagproof Tournament Frog can entice some of the most aggressive surface strikes imaginable. […]
Content
Cats in the cracks
As much as he likes to catch giant catfish, there’s not much that makes four-time national catfish champion angler Phil King from Corinth happier than watching a 7-foot Cabela’s Fish Eagle spinning rod double over under the weight of a feisty channel cat.
And to hear him tell it, his happiest months of the year are April, May and June because that’s when the channel cats start backing up into the myriad cracks and crevices along Pickwick’s multitude of craggy rock banks. […]