By Joe Cermele

One lucky reader is going to earn the chance to go fishing with one of these two cover models. At left we have the March 2010 cover of Field & Stream featuring a Sebile Magic Swimmer. On the right we have actress Alice Eve, who is on the April 2010 cover of Maxim. Both are sexy, no doubt. Question is, which one do you think I have the power to hook you up with?

By John Merwin

Hatchery trout aren’t so much dumb as they are ignorant. That’s important because for many people the opening of trout season means trying to catch newly stocked trout. These are fish that might not eat the most artfully presented artificial nymph simply because they have no experience with the natural food it represents.

That’s why you’ll often have better opening-day luck with a flashy streamer pattern or a Mepps spinner or even a worm. Recently stocked trout often respond very aggressively to something that moves and flashes through the water. And the scent of a worm can bring an immediate bite. But not a Light Cahill dry fly. Huh? What’s that?

By Joe Cermele

Not long ago, Tim Romano over at the Fly Talk Blog asked how you felt about downloading fishing applications to your iPhone. There are "apps" out there that give you real-time stream flow rates and tell you how to tie fishing knots. Of course, before you can download one of these programs to your smart phone, you have to actually own a smart phone. Love the idea or hate it, in due time these gadgets will likely replace the common cell phone. So when they do, you may as well take advantage of the useful fishing tools at your fingertips. Take, for example, the recently introduced Boat Ramp and Bait Shop applications.

By John Merwin

The weekend’s snow is melting quickly, and spring, as they say, is just around the corner. So I’m looking forward to fishing soon and thinking about what tackle and lures I want to stock up on right now.

In a nutshell: hand-poured worms. No, not nightcrawlers dumped out of a can. I mean some very special soft-plastic worms that worked so much better than anything else in my bass fishing last year.