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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 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 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 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  Eelgrass with seed-bearing shoots. Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
I’d like to think that anglers, whether on their own or through clubs they belong to, do something to give back to the resources that they so clearly enjoy. Things like helping clean up trash on a lake, recycle fishing line and soft plastic lures, habitat improvement projects. There are many ways that anglers can do something to help. One fascinating way to help is by getting in the water and working with groups that are restoring habitat in areas that critically need such. Stream restoration projects, for example, are commonly undertaken by some anglers, particularly those belonging to local Trout Unlimited chapters. Building oyster castles and reefs is another one undertaken in coastal estuaries, where oyster recovery is necessary to help with water quality improvement as well as forming habitat that attracts forage and predator species. This past week I got in the water on the Eastern Shore of Virginia with By Ken Schultz
Editors note: This is a re-publication of a blog post originally published on ESPNOutdoors.com in April 2005. The November 2004 issue of Bassmaster magazine reported that angler Bill Alexander won second place in last summer's BASS tournament on the Hudson River. The article mentioned that Alexander was applying a "finesse approach" for the river's finicky bass. It noted that Alexander sprayed his plastic worms with – pay attention, now – "garlic-flavored Pam Cooking Spray." My first reaction was that this was ingenious. And economical. So I went to my local supermarket, where a 5-ounce can of Original PAM was By Ken Schultz
Much has been made about the fact that the newest Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, is an avid angler. Likewise, the Fonz, actor Henry Winkler, has been profiled for his angling enthusiasm, most recently on the CBS Sunday Morning show in January. Both Gorsuch and Winkler are trout and fly fishing devotees, and pretty serious about the sport. I thought about those two personalities when By Ken Schultz
Recently a friend asked me if the U.S. had a national fish, like we have a national symbol in the bald eagle. We don't. And probably shouldn't, in my opinion. In 2015, Rep. Tom MacArthur, then a freshman Congressman from New Jersey, introduced the Striped Bass American Heritage Act, which proposed to make the striped bass our country's national fish. It didn't gain any traction. If you'd like to read more about the life and behavior of the striper, you can find it at this link: http://fishing.about.com/…/fl/Species-Profile-Striped-Bass.… I love the striper, but I'm not sure that this or any other species warrants such designation. What, exactly, are the benefits? Will it change anything with respect to management or commercial fishing activities? How would the striper as a national fish have related to the people in Minnesota or Ohio, or other places with no native striped bass population? What about the cod, which, as Mark Kurlansky noted in his book of the same name, was responsible for explorers discovering North America? What about the salmon species of the Northwest, which were of equal importance to natives and settlers of that region as the striper was to the Northeast? What about the largemouth bass, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has noted in its regular surveys of sportfishing, is the most popular sportfish in America? Maybe it is best left to each state to determine its own "state" fish. Many of them do. Btw, the state saltwater fish of Congressman MacArthur's New Jersey is the striped bass. |
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