The Inside Line

You don’t develop a physique like this one without downing a few pounds of Cheeto dust. Fortunately, I hang around enough foodie types that not all of my indulgences are so lowbrow. I’ve made the rounds of Manhattan, Tokyo, Los Angeles, New Orleans and other eating meccas. I’m on good terms with Wagyu beef, churrascaria and all kinds of Thai chiles. I once ate a 31 course meal from Chef Jose Andres that included a serving of “lime air.”

One of the highlights of the annual Bass Fishing Hall of Fame dinner is the chance to bid on items that are – as they used to say on TV – “not sold in any store.” Yes, there are screaming deals to be had on jackplates and flipping sticks and raingear, but typically the highlights of the auction are the trips with famous anglers to incredible places.

Drummer Ginger Baker, best known for his work with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce in Cream, died over the weekend. He was, by all accounts, a combative, ornery, substance-addicted, mean-spirted sonofabitch. There was no question that he was talented, but his battles with band members and other drummers alike, along with multiple wives, reinforced just how hard he was to deal with.

While the biggest payara were caught on live and cut bait, during our recent trip to the Amazon many of the large wolf fish came on crankbaits. Toward the end of the week a few members of the group managed to catch some good ones on big squarebills in the rapids and eddies, overall the best bait was one that the lodge gave us, an oversized deep diver from Argentina. We caught fish with it casting to sandbars and deep rock outcroppings and occasionally trolling it over expansive flats.

If you want your wife, girlfriend, mistress, daughter, mother or female friend to dislike fishing, make sure she has an ill-fitting or low-quality rainsuit. It’s not hard to do. There are plenty of them out there. Even the good ones don’t necessarily fit women correctly.

Fishing live bait or cut bait sometimes gets a bad rap (including from otherwise-informed outdoor writers). The frequent perception is that all it involves is a cricket under a cork, or a freelined shiner, and that it’s the next best thing to cheating. I’ve never gone that far, but I’ve been shamed as a friend and I flipped up a bunch of one- and two-pounders on an Okeechobee bank, and then found out that an anchored shiner guide on that same bank had already caught five fish over six pounds.

I fished local and regional tournaments for nearly 20 years, and I always thought it was the solitary nature of the sport that appealed to me. While I typically had a partner or another competitor in the boat with me, much of the work was done solo. Even when we were fishing it wasn’t a social hour and the heavy talkers quickly got a taste of either me ignoring them or – in extreme cases – a heavy dose of STFU. As a confirmed introvert, someone who’s happy to spend long hours in the boat by himself and recoils every time the phone rings, that was my idea of heaven.

Once I’d made the decision to cross over to the dark side and rock the clown shirt, there was no reason to stop with just one. I needed and second, and truth be told there was an outside chance that I’d end up with three.

I’ve spilled a lot of ink, and spent lots of pixels, criticizing the exponential proliferation of dye-sublimated fishing jerseys. While they have valid uses among pros, non-pros and even non-anglers, the problem is that when everyone wears one all the time, their value becomes diluted and they eventually turn into a parody of themselves.

When I’m preparing to fish a tournament, one of the biggest things is breaking down a lake.  Whether it’s a lake I fish several times a year, or one that I only get to fish occasionally, it’s important to have a solid game plan.

After a disappointing finish on the St. Lawrence River, I wasn’t sure what the rest of the season would bring. That river has always been good to me, and I fully expected to do well there. So falling behind in the points race was a major blow.

Although there had been rudimentary research into the way sound travels through water as early as the 19th century, it wasn’t until the onset of World War I that these concepts were utilized for more than just novel experiments. The sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915 by a German U-Boat didn’t just trigger American involvement in the Great War, it also demonstrated to the world how effective submarine warfare could be – and left other nations scrambling to find any way to counter their effectiveness.

Summertime can be some of the year’s toughest fishing conditions because high water temperatures can make the fish lethargic and harder to target. Night fishing is your best bet for overcoming the heat, but if you have to fish during the day, I’d offer this advice.

Arguably the best smallmouth fishery on the planet, the St. Lawrence River has remained a favorite since my first visit in the late 1980s. I’ve won a lot of money there, and two trophies. So, when it appeared on this year’s schedule, I had high expectations.

My record on Lake Guntersville is solid. I’ve had a number of high finishes there that included some 25-plus pound stringers, and I’ve caught them in a variety of ways.

The one thing that factored into nearly all those catches was vegetation.

At Dobyns Rods, we build models for every technique bass anglers need to employ. Sometimes, they’re making short, precise casts, flips, pitches or skips to specific targets; other times, they’re launching baits long distances. It’s important to develop your skills at all presentations, but I think the long cast is something that doesn’t always get enough attention.

When B.A.S.S. announced Lake Fork as site of this year’s Texas Fest, every angler in the field immediately thought of big bass. Because of good management and strict catch-and-release regulations, trophy bass are abundant on Lake Fork, and this year’s event certainly proved it.

Of all the events slated on this year’s Bassmaster Elite Series schedule, none was more concerning than Winyah Bay. Serving as the confluence to numerous rivers, this South Carolina tidal system can be unpredictable and stingy … even when the conditions seem right.