Here’s one for the ultralight-spinning folks. Specifically, how to cast midget spinning lures into areas of very shallow water without getting stuck on the bottom.

The problem typically occurs in the low waters of late-summer or early-autumn trout or smallmouth-bass streams, where long and shallow clear pools are interspersed with short riffles. The trout or bass are in the pools. Ultralight gear is perfect for making a long cast that won’t spook them. But typically, by the time you start a retrieve your spoon, spinner, or little jig has sunken into the shallow rocks. So you’re stuck.

Try this. Just as the lure is about to hit the water, extend the index finger of your rod hand to the spinning-reel spool to stop the line coming off the spool. At the same time, sweep the rod upward to start the lure traveling toward you immediately. Then with your left hand crank the reel to close the bail and retrieve normally. By this method, the lure is working as soon as it hits the water instead of sinking and snagging.

The same technique will also work in lakes and ponds when casting over barely submerged weeds that would otherwise tangle you lure. It’s a tip I first learned from an A.J. McClane article in this magazine back in the early 1960s. I am honored to pass it along.

So how do you take your Field & Stream -- on-line only or also in print? I get the feeling that the majority of readers here are not also subscribers to the print edition. On-line is free and the print edition is not, so perhaps that’s why. But still, a year’s print subscription only costs a measly 10 bucks. I think if you’re not also a print subscriber, you’re short-changing yourself. Here’s why.

When I write my fishing column in the print edition, for example, I can and do go into much more useful detail on any given topic than I can in an on-line blog post, which, by definition, is much shorter. The same is true of Cermele, Bestul, Bourjaily, Deeter, Petzal, and all the other regular contributors who appear in both mediums. Reading on-line is useful and valuable--at least I try to make it so--but there’s even more more utility and value in print.

Interaction is another reason. If you read something in one of my print-edition fishing columns and have a question, you can ask your question right here. I’ll say right away that I’m not promising to answer every cockamamie theory that gets posted on this site. But I do try to be a good guy and answer reasonable questions in a reasonable way. Interacting with writers on-line is a unique opportunity that too few people utilize.

The print edition is also portable, meaning it works just as well in an Alaskan outhouse as it does in an Atlanta living room. The only electricity required might be flashlight batteries for reading in the tent on a rainy night. Yes, it is sometimes true that I read the magazine on-line on my iPod Touch while hanging around in some distant airport. But even there, reading the print edition is a hell of a lot easier.

Then there’s the final argument. Like most magazines, we are a commercial product and not a charity. If people aren’t willing to pay for the product, it eventually won’t exist. Can you imagine the world of hunting and fishing without Field & Stream? I can’t. So maybe it’s time to click here and vote with your credit card....

Let’s get back to some hard-core fishing. As some here know full well, there are lots of little things in fishing that mean a great deal--sharp hooks, good knots, and--yes--split rings. These are the little double coils of wire that hold the hooks on many lures. The following doesn’t happen too often, but it can happen. You hook an unusually big or strong fish, the split ring pulls apart, the fish gets away, and the air turns blue with words you never heard in Sunday school.

So I was talking with Terry Trattner a while back, who has a company called Wolverine Tackle out in Illinois. Wolverine makes so-called “super rings” that Trattner says are the strongest around. These split rings are made of three wire coils instead of two. I told Trattner that I thought he had a pretty good product, but that too few people knew about it. He of course allowed as how that was true. So here we are.

The Wolverine rings are available in both stainless-steel and black finishes and in four sizes. The newest and smallest size (#4) looks about right for most largemouth-bass lures. The muskie and striper guys would probably want to go a little bigger. The price is right around $1.30 for a 10-pack. Split rings are fairly easy to replace as long as you have a pair of split-ring pliers. Or use your thumbnail, which can get painful if you’re not careful. Anyway, stronger split rings seem to me like cheap insurance if big fish are in the offing....

As fish mounts go, these are definitely unusual and maybe even a little gruesome. A small Florida company called Helter Skeletons produces full-skeleton mounts of various gamefishes that are some of the most eye-catching things I’ve seen in years. The largemouth-bass skeleton shown here is one example. Can you imagine something like this rising from the lily pads?

The makers explained that they’ll take your fish as shipped to them frozen, clean the carcass down to the bones, give the skeleton some sort of light-epoxy treatment to hold everything in its proper place, and return the mount in an attractive shadow box, ready for display. The actual cleaning work is done by a horde of carrion-eating Dermestid beetles, which eat away all the flesh. Such beetles are also used by regular taxidermists in producing some animal mounts. For an interesting example, check out a Montana company called Big Sky Beetle Works.

Predictably, and like regular taxidermy, none of this comes cheaply. Helter Skeletons prices their work by the inch, with a 10-inch fish, skeletized and shadow-boxed, costing about $290. The company has some work for sale from stock and also does custom jobs. As a conversation piece to hang on the wall, I find this to be really tempting.