Fishing

The Cooyon Croaker

Zach Dubois, 24, has a highly successful sac-a-lait grub on the market and recently introduced the Cooyon Croaker, a plastic frog sure to appeal to bass fishermen wherever bass eat frogs.

Dubois said he fields many comments about his relative youth in the artificial lure manufacturing business. He realizes many people have been established in the market 40 to 80 years.

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Deer Hunting

Ground proving buck age

We began a general discussion of this topic in the recent February, 2017 installment of Happy Trails. Let’s now go a little further and expand the discussion. Ground proving bucks means harvesting bucks that you believe meet your minimum goals, collecting their lower jaw bones for “tooth replacement/wear” age estimates, then comparing the earlier “live on-the-hoof” eyeball age estimate with the jawbone indicated age for confirmation or clarification. […]

Bass Fishing

Staying up on current events

Using Ross Barnett Reservoir as an example, FLW Tour pro Pete Ponds of Gluckstadt points to spillways as some of the best riprap spots you’ll find. Draining backwaters through sub-highway pipes, these flushing points reach open water through culverts buttressed by riprap.  […]

Crappie/Bream

Troll or cast the post-spawn? Why not both?

National crappie tournament champions Ronnie Capps and Steve Coleman have earned themselves the reputation for being diehard tight-line trollers, but they describe a twist that one or both of them may use during the post-spawn to pick off male who are sticking tight to the nest during the post-spawn to guard fry. […]

Bass Fishing

Fish Pickwick Lake for 30 May bass per day

Pickwick bass fishing can’t get any better than in May. From only two or three schools of bass, you may catch 30 or more bass per day. If rising water happens, the bass will be in this newly inundated water in the grass, bushes and trees. About the middle of May, the bass will be pulling out of the creeks and staging at their mouths or in the cuts and ditches in the flats leading to the river channel. At the end of May, I’ll look for bass out on the main river channel.  […]

Crappie/Bream

Crappie know how to stay cool

As I write this, the crappie are spawning. When you read this, the spawn will be over and the adults moving to their summer homes. For many anglers, crappie season is over. But the number of year-round dedicated crappie anglers appears to be increasing, as is their knowledge of how to catch summer crappie. The results of a crappie movement study by University of Missouri fishery scientists may offer some thoughts to add to your treasure chest of crappie-catching knowledge. […]