 The author holds a bass caught on a Tiny Torpedo along the shoreline. Photo © Ken Schultz It’s About the Right Time, Right Place, Right Retrieve
By Ken Schultz It was about 11:30 when the big bass struck, a time that I’m often off the water in summer. In hot weather I prefer to get an early start (and finish) and avoid the high bright overhead sun and heat. However, I hadn’t put my kayak onto this small and very shallow pond until 10 this morning. This fish was hooked on a fairly light spinning outfit and immediately headed into the bushes, came out, went under the boat, came out, ran for deep water, came back, and finally succumbed. Over 21 inches long, it was dark and fat-bellied, and somewhere in the 5- to 6-pound range. I didn’t have a scale and my camera was tucked away, so I had to hold the thrashing fish in the water with one hand while rummaging around to set up my camera. Like all eight of the fish I’d previously landed, the big bass was coaxed out of thick shoreline brush. I’d been teasing them with a clear 2-inch-long Heddon Tiny Torpedo, an oldtime surface plug that had lain unused in my tackle box for several years. But with near-calm conditions today and super-clear water, it seemed like something small but gently noisy, like a topwater plug with a rear propellor, might do the job. In fact, when the 21-inch bass struck, I was thinking how nice it was for an old-time lure to be effective, since so much emphasis in the bass fishing world today is on new and often high-priced lures. A few more largemouths struck the Tiny Torpedo before the action slowed and a light breeze made it harder to put the plug exactly where needed. So I switched to Episode at Texas’ Lake Ray Hubbard Almost Too Hard to Believe  Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
The American fishing tackle industry holds an annual trade show every summer. I went to it for several decades representing Field & Stream. In 1986 it was in Dallas, and I arrived a day early to join Larry Columbo, who worked for Humminbird Electronics, fishing on Lake Ray Hubbard with guide Johnny Procell for hybrid stripers. An excellent angler, Procell may have been one of Humminbird’s pro staffers, and was specializing in catching these then-somewhat-new fish. A Good Sportfish in Many Ways Hybrids, as these fish are often simply called, are a cross between pure-strain striped bass and pure-strain white bass. They don’t get as large as the parent stripers, and they’re sterile. Like other sterile species, they grow quickly because all of their energy is devoted to foraging and none to reproduction. Being sterile, their numbers are maintained by stocking and their population can be controlled based on the need (or lack thereof) to control baitfish populations. The prodigious appetite of hybrids for baitfish (threadfin and gizzard shad at Hubbard) produces fish that have smallish heads and deep bodies, resulting in a specimen that has a lot of pulling power. Anglers love hybrid stripers because of their aggressiveness and energy, and the species has been stocked widely around the country, mostly in impoundments. Speed Jigging Procell introduced us to speed jigging for hybrids on deepwater humps (he calls it “smokin’”). These mounds exist  The author with an early-day striper. Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
After we’d landed the second or third large striper casting with light tackle, Joe Valentine asked, “Do you do this every time?” “I think it’s you, Joe,” I answered. “You’re the good luck charm.” Joe hadn’t fished on my boat in a while, but he joined me and George Phillips yesterday in Virginia waters of Chesapeake Bay. The sun was just clearing the horizon when we reached our first destination near Tangier Island, after a frigid 30-minute run over calm water. The air temperature was 29 degrees when we left the dock, and we were bundled like moon-walking astronauts. A few minutes later I was posing for photos with a 32-inch striper, noticing later that I still had my skull cap and ski goggles on top of my head in the photos. The fish took a big swimming plug about 15 minutes after we arrived. I revived the bass and put it back in the water, and a few moments later George hollered out. Off to the northeast some 25 miles, a large rocket was lifting off the launchpad at Wallops Island, Virginia, carrying a cargo mission to the Space Station. I should have held the fish a little longer and gotten the rocket in the background. Over the next few hours we moved to several places, casting jigs and large plugs around By Ken Schultz
The other day I was standing behind someone at a lunch counter who took out his wallet and extracted one of several credit cards inside. The wallet was pretty slim overall. My wallet has gotten thicker in recent years, and not because there’s a lot of currency in it or a pile of credit/debit cards. In fact, it’s nearly 1 3/4 inches thick. So a bit of thin-wallet envy kicked in when I looked at the holder of the guy paying for his cheeseburger. And then it occurred to me: he’s not a fisherman. At least not someone who fishes in freshwater and saltwater in multiple When You’ve Got a Good But Vulnerable Hotspot, It May Not Be Wise to Tell Everyone Else  Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
Soon I could be facing the same dilemma that I did at this time last year. While prospecting solo on a big expanse of coastal bays, I found good action in a difficult-to-fish area near a seldom-used access. No one else was fishing that area on any of my early explorations. That’s as good as it gets. And also when you should keep your mouth shut. I brought a few friends in on the discovery on the condition that they not be explicit about where we actually were if they talked to someone about it, and they should say that we put in at some access site other than where we actually launched. And they did, as far as I know. One fellow felt especially bad when a friend of his specifically asked where he’d been and he said he couldn’t divulge that because  Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
There’s a chill in the air, and some significant changes are occurring or are about to occur. In the fall, a major change in some lakes is the turnover, a phenomenon that is especially noticeable in bodies of water that have significant depth and layers of markedly different temperature. This is generally large lakes and reservoirs. If you only fish occasionally, you may miss the changes that occur and simply find on your next outing that the lake is quite different than it was on your previous visit, and perhaps harder to fish. But if you fish a lot you’ll probably observe some of the things that happen. Either way, fishing may become poor for a short while during the turnover, but quite good afterward. Why and How Lakes Turn Here’s what happens in the actual “turnover”: When the average air temperature is lower than the water’s surface, the temperature in the upper zone declines and mixing takes place. Cold water is more dense than warm water, so newly cooled surface water sinks to deeper levels. This causes a mixing of the water throughout the zones. Eventually the zones disappear. When the  Photo © Ken Schultz Paddling With a Group of Non-anglers Is Not a Good Idea
By Ken Schultz Sports Afield was once a major national fishing and hunting magazine with a monthly paid circulation of at least 1.1 million at its peak. It has been around for over a century. A few decades ago a new publishing director decided that the magazine’s content should include such topics as cross-country skiing, mountain biking, board sailing, and the like. After the first repurposed editions appeared, including a cover photo of a young woman on snow skis, endemic advertisers bolted and longtime readers cancelled or didn’t renew. The new format was a terrible failure. Sports Afield went downhill quickly, was sold to a succession of owners, and eventually settled as an exotic big-game hunting quarterly with a small five-figure circulation. At the time that this occurred I worked for rival publication Field & Stream, and the lesson that I and my fellow editors learned was that, editorially, you cannot mix the hardcore fishing and hunting crowd with hardcore mountain bikers or “other outdoor sports” enthusiasts. Similarly, fishing out of a kayak while paddling with people who do not fish is also a poor mix. I’ve tried. Every summer for nearly two decades my wife and I have participated in  With or without success, any day of fishing is a good one. Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
Last fall I came home from a couple days of unsuccessful fishing for striped bass, and mentioned as much in a quick email to a friend. Sorry to hear about that, replied my corresponding friend, “but it’s always refreshing to hear about guys like you striking out, too.” I’m glad he was refreshed, I guess. But my friend’s comment reminded me that I’m sometimes guilty of talking a little too much about the good fishing I’ve enjoyed at certain places without noting that sometimes I’ve been at great fishing destinations when the fishing was not so great. This is not the kind of comment that makes tourism folks happy, or necessarily makes for scintillating reading, but anyone who fishes very much knows that the only people who always catch fish are the ones who have television shows, even if they have to spend a week filming to get enough fish to cram into 23 minutes of air time. I once fished with a fishing and hunting show host who couldn’t fish very well and  A nice Florida speckled trout. Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
I was a new staff member at Field & Stream decades ago when I made my first summer-time visit to Florida. I’d been at a tackle show in Atlanta and rented a car to drive to Cocoa, where I was meeting acquaintances to fish for largemouth bass at a fish camp. It was late July and I arrived via the air conditioned car late at night, went right into an air conditioned mobile trailer, and did not experience midsummer Florida’s real steamy conditions until the next morning. At dawn when I stepped outside the trailer, my glasses fogged up and the humidity grabbed me in the chest, reminding me of the hothouse in a botanical garden. My first thought was, how am I going to make it through the day? I made it through several days, as it turned out, and caught the largest bass of my life in the process, a near 12-pounder. Since then I’ve managed pretty well in hot, humid, and even jungle/rain forest fishing situations. But it was hotter than hell when I got to the Gulf Coast last summer for  The author fishing from his Old Town Predator kayak. Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
Recently I was exchanging emails with an old friend and mentioned that I was going to be in Florida fishing from a kayak for redfish and seatrout. He commented that it seemed to him like everyone is going fishing in kayaks these days. Saying “everyone” is hyperbole, but fishing from kayaks has really gotten popular. I can’t claim that I was in the forefront of this growing movement, but I’ve been keen on that watercraft ever since I first sat in one almost two decades ago. And the first kayak I ever got into is one that I bought on the recommendation of an Adirondack guide friend, who said that the size and cockpit of the Loon 138, then a relatively new kayak model from Old Town Canoe Company, made it very good for fishing. He was absolutely right. I bought one in early March of 1999 and when I put this 13-foot kayak into the water at a local pond, where the ice was still melting, I quickly found  Mish Michaels of the Weather Channel, with the author (right), catching her first bass on an overcast day. Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
The Weather Channel once aired a segment that I filmed with them about fishing and the weather. It first ran on their now-defunct Atmospheres program at the end of December and in the first week of January, and was re-aired many times in the following months. I was surprised by the number of people who saw that episode and contacted me about it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been, because, next to ESPN, the Weather Channel is probably the most popular network for anglers and hunters. In the segment, I introduced Atmosphere’s co-host Mish Michaels to fishing, briefly giving her some casting lessons with spinning tackle and then helping her catch her first bass and pickerel. She had fun, which came through in the show, and which was great for helping to expose the sport to many people who may not fish. Additionally, however, our purpose was to talk about the affects of weather on fish and fishing. Fortunately the weather played into our hands in the two days of filming, as we had a very warm day followed by a cold, blustery, overcast day. At the outset of the second day of fishing, Mish asked me if By Ken Schultz
If you fish often and long enough some unusual, funny, and potentially dangerous experiences will happen. If you fish at night, the chances of having such experiences increase significantly. I often fish just before and after dark. On many nights there are wonderful sunsets, which are generally obscured from my view by tall trees around the ponds I fish. But just before darkness falls, there’s a pinkish glow in the sky that lasts a short while, and white wispy clouds turn pink against a marine-blue background. I’ve stopped fishing to admire this, especially on those nights just prior to the full moon, when it rises early and is perched just above the trees out in the painted sky. The fishing’s often pretty good, too. Some nights nothing more unusual or odd happens than a slew of bats foraging mightily. Some of them may even strike the line. I’ve been startled a few times when  Largemouth bass. Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
Surely you have read articles and seen documentaries about invasive species and the effect that they’ve had on native flora and fauna throughout the world. Back in 2005, a sidebar to a National Geographic article on invasives listed the 100 least wanted invasive species worldwide, according to a global invasive species database maintained by the World Conservation Union. They were not listed in order of the degree of threat they imposed. Among the seven species listed in the fish group was Micropterus salmoides. Yep, the darling of the North American freshwater sportfishing community and the single-most popular predatory fish species in the U.S.: the largemouth bass. Which, by the way, was endemic to parts of the North American continent, yet is now found  The author drives a 4-stroke Suzuki on Table Rock Lake. Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
I’ve been using a personal computer since about 1980. But that doesn’t mean I know much about Ram and ROM, processors and display drivers, or can do any more “programming” than I could back in college when I took a course in the now-ancient Cobalt and Fortran computer languages. But I can get normal things done on a computer just fine. I’ve been driving a car since I was 16. But I can’t repair one and I don’t know a piston from a manifold and I’m lucky if I can even point to the carburetor. But I’m a pretty good auto driver, even with those smaller rental cars I often have to use. And, I’ve been boating even longer than I’ve been driving a car or using a computer. I had a little hydroplane as a youngster and raced around the lake where my family summered, probably annoying fishermen there much like today’s personal watercraft users do. But I couldn’t tell you a thing about outboard engines other than how to start them, fuel them, and clean them. I retract that last item; I rarely clean the outside of my outboards. As with the computers and autos that I’ve owned, my boat must have an engine that runs flawlessly, and, in general, is a utilitarian device that I don’t have to spend time tinkering with. I just want to have it start whenever I turn the key, get me where I need to fish, and By Ken Schultz
Someone told me a few years ago about a person who was writing a book about his attempt to catch fifty species of fish on a fly. He was hoping to get an article about this published in a major magazine and the feat was allegedly going to qualify for a Guinness World Record. My first reaction, as it usually is with such stuff, was to dismiss this undertaking and wonder if this person doesn’t have some better contribution to make to mankind. Then it occurred to me that I have probably caught fifty or more species of fish on a fly, though |
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