

Teaching the Next Generation
With fish being deep and hard to find currently, sometimes I like to be reminded of the bigger picture. My buddy Steve took his young son out for his first fishing trip recently and while they didn't catch any fish, the pictures tell an important story. Most of us would agree that in order for our sport to continue to thrive in the future, the up-and-comers need to be taught from an early age the joys of fishing as well as the protection and conservation of it. Starting them


Giving Salt a Try
My son has been getting into saltwater fishing quite a bit more this summer and wanted the two of us to go and try on our own. We have a jetty that is not that far from us where a river dumps into the ocean and upon arriving, it was low tide with the tide starting to come in. We were going to run three different setups, two of the setups we ran a three way swivel that has a 3oz weight on one line. The line with the hook we ran two different baits with one being a chunk of mac


Raising Monarch Butterflies
The Monarch butterfly, the King or Queen of all butterflies. We all grew up seeing these majestic butterflies as kids, but the Monarch species is in trouble and unless something is done our children's kids may never see one except in a text book. There are many organizations out there helping to fund projects in order to save these insects. From disappearing habitats to global warming, these butterflies can't seem to catch a break. According to World Wildlife Federations 2017


Hot Weather and Looking for Bass
Thanks to over two weeks of 90 degree weather nearly every day now, many of the fish in the Black Hills region are well into their mid and late summer patterns.Many species have gone deeper and are huddling around deeper flats, rocky points, and isolated humps and rocks. But there are still some bass to be found huddled in the thick weeds in the shallows and after receiving a tip, my friend Steve and I met another friend, Matt, and his boat at Stockade Lake to give these weed


Minnesota Grown
Summer in Minnesota is never long enough, it seems once it begins, fall leaves start to change. However, the best part of the short-lived summer season are all the delicious fruits, and vegetables that are grown right here in Minnesota. Waking up to a beautiful Minnesota summer morning, I decided it was time to go for a road trip. I found myself at Nelson’s Berries, which is South of Brainerd off Highway 25 going towards Pierz Minnesota. When I arrived, a few customers were a


The Catfish Huntress Strikes Again!
Some people seem to have a knack for finding and catching fish no matter the situation. That always seems to be the way catfishing goes when my wife (who I call the "Catfish Huntress") and I head out to the river to try our luck at it. Over the last several years, she always seems to be the one that catches the big fish or catches the most when it comes to cats. The fish seem to find her bait a lot more often than not, while many times, I get some nibbles and that's it. Not t


Going for a Pumpkin Record
Many of you followed along last year as I grew an Atlantic Giant pumpkin. It was fun to get my kids involved and learning as the season progressed while finishing the season close to 800lbs with decent seeds and only vine burying, I was extremely happy and I didn't even touch fertilizer! This year I'm on a whole new level. Starting with sending soil samples to Nebraska and correcting the imbalance of nutrients and minerals. I got a hold of way better seeds this year including


Learning New Waters
Anglers get stuck in a habit of fishing the same waters over and over again and get into a comfort zone that they tend not to want to try other locations. By trying different waters as well as different scenarios, lakes vs rivers, this in the long run, makes an angler more versatile and able to adapt more quickly for finding fish at newer locations. Not having much experience on fishing river systems, we have been frequenting one such system a few times already with more trip


Review of Vexilar's SonarPhone T-Pod
For a few years now, I've been trying to figure out how to tell depth and temperature while on my inflatable pontoon. As I've gotten into experimenting with trolling from it using crankbaits or Lindy rigs, being able to tell the depth and the structure has always been an issue as there isn't a good way to put a full fledge sonar on it. Added to that, is that most sonar, while less than before, are still fairly expensive with many costing more than my pontoon was. If I was ver