2016 - Page 20 of 44 - Mississippi Sportsman

The summer doldrums

July 18, 2016 Bill Garbo

If you are a deer hunting that wants to maximize your chances for success this fall and winter, this is the time of year to get busy. […]

Taking trout to school

July 17, 2016 Patrick Bonin

Scanning the horizon for flocks of diving birds feasting on shrimp is a tried-and-true method for locating schools of speckled trout. […]

Placing a new spool of line in a bucket or bowl when spooling eases memory issues associated with monofilament.

Wet line to respool reel

July 16, 2016 Patrick Bonin

Being a fishing guide, Capt. Curtis LeNormand probably re-spools more reels over the course of a year than even the most conscientious weekend angler. […]

Bright crankbaits, like a chartreuse with a blue back, will produce in the summer, our two hot-weather bass experts will tell you.

Breaking point

July 15, 2016 Michael O. Giles

Terry Bates looks for breaks, ledges and points 8 to 12 feet deep where he finds a drop with deep water running close to a point. […]

Terry Bates pinpoints bass suspended around trees in deep water, where he flips and pitches tubes to lure explosive strikes.

Cool Carolina tubing tips

July 15, 2016 Michael O. Giles

Chucky Hamrick is a fan of the magnum tubes in the summer, but not in the traditional sense.

“I like to Carolina-rig tubes,” Hamrick said. “I’ll use the magnum tubes on a Carolina rig and put rattles in them, and they’ll float higher and they mimic small shad. Sometimes a slow-falling tube will be just what a bass needs to entice it into biting. […]

Give Terry Bates a well-defined edge of grass, and he can usually coax a bass into striking either a crankbait or a twin-prop topwater lure.

How to crank grass

July 15, 2016 Michael O. Giles

Chucky Hamrick also cranks grass, something few anglers ever do now days. […]

Chucky Hamrick will look for anything to bang his crankbait against, and that erratic and loud retrieve attracts big bass.

Out of tune — A different crankbait tactic

July 15, 2016 Michael O. Giles

While many anglers constantly tune their crankbaits to run straight, Stonewall’s Chucky Hamrick takes a slightly different approach when the occasion calls for it. […]

Don’t look for Stonewall’s Chucky Hamrick in deep water, even in the summer. He stays shallow and it sure works for him.

Texas-rig tubes

July 15, 2016 Michael O. Giles

Texas-rigging is a great option when working shallow cover, Stonewall’s Chucky Hamrick said. […]

Laydowns like this partially submerged top make perfect ambush points for suspended bass in the willows on river lakes. Bates will work every piece of visible cover with magnum tubes when the bite is slow.

Tips for going shallow

July 15, 2016 Michael O. Giles

Chucky Hamrick of Stonewall is kind of like a shallower version of Bates. […]

Pickwick’s flathead catfish are usually caught hiding behind current breaks near the dams on either end of the Lake.

How to fish the Santee catfish rig

July 15, 2016 Phillip Gentry

Larger catfish, particularly trophy-sized blue cats that are popular with a lot of anglers, are a lot more nomadic than most anglers give them credit. These fish have been compared to cattle, just wandering along travel corridors, grazing as they move from place to place. […]

Take a finesse-oriented Senko, add a bullet weight to the nose to give bass a different look.

Other heavy finesse bass-fishing tactics

July 15, 2016 David A. Brown

Drop-shots aren’t the only finesse rigs that can be beefed up to provide bass a bite-enducing curve ball. […]

How to get bottom rigs unhooked when bass fishing

July 15, 2016 David A. Brown

If the heavy finesse strategy has a hang-up, then we’ve punned our way into the explanation — hang-ups, snags, entanglements. […]