“Smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em!” I first became familiar with smoked fish spread soon after moving to Florida.    It was an appetizer I saw at local restaurants and I also had a friend who talked about “taking a bucketful” of the stuff to his hunting buddies on a regular basis.    In time, I supplied [...]

Written by Andy Whitcomb A tiny, relatively new, never-stocked pond on the back of our farm continues to surprise. A couple of years ago the green sunfish showed up. Last fall, we discovered bass up to a pound. Now, the bullheads have joined the party.

Written by Andy Whitcomb I’m not there. My stuff is still by the door; I’ll have to miss the 2011 BassMaster Classic in New Orleans. I had the truck full of fuel, hotel reservations, maps, a big cold can of iced mocha, and my notebook with some questions for the anglers.

Sometimes they cry for no apparent reason or pitch a fit when I tell them they can’t have something. After I weather the storm with my children or successfully correct their attitude, I often wonder… What am I doing wrong? Am I raising these little imitations of me right?

The Legend of Neil Taylor, “Anchor Man” Is it completely mindless?    You drop your anchor, end of story?   Let’s consider the following question: What is anchoring?   Getting your watercraft secured to the seafloor is a great definition.  For any craft users or the kayak anglers, utilizing anchors does have some straightforward basics but it also [...]

Written by Andy Whitcomb (originally published Dec 2008, www.espnoutdoors.com… In case you missed it then. Still fond of this piece.-A) With the invention of the boat — with that first hollowed out canoe — and subsequent forgetting to put the plug in, came the invention of the first artificial fish structure. (The location of which [...]

Written by Andy Whitcomb (Be careful sending fish photos… This could happen to you!) A few years ago on a frigid week in December, I was invited to go steelhead fishing by an angler known near Erie, as “Guy with a Flasher” (his method of charging glow-in-the-dark spoons). The two-hour early morning drive with Guy [...]

Written by Andy Whitcomb Taking a marketing cue from some of professional angling subjects, I now drive with some advertisement on my vehicles. And I don’t know how they do it. I asked a couple of Elite BassMaster anglers, “Does driving around with your name and sponsors all over your rig influence road rage? Do [...]

It seems like a “dream job”, surrounding yourself with fishing equipment and selling to the fishing folk who are going to come in and drop their entire paycheck on everything you have in your store.   You get to “talk fishing for 12 hours a day with the hordes of customers you’re sure to get coming [...]