By Joe Cermele

There has been some healthy debate among a few of us in the office recently about whether or not fishing guides should fish during paid charters. I realize that the answer is not exactly cut and dry, but rather highly circumstantial. Nine times out of 10, if I'm out with a guide I actually insist he or she fishes because I need as many hook-ups and landings as possible for videos or photos. I also find you can learn more from watching a guide catch fish rather than just explain how to catch fish. I feel differently, however, when the work element is taken away. Then it becomes a question of who else is on the boat.

By John Merwin

Welcome to the fishing-tackle graveyard, a place where old gear goes to die. The photo shows a shelf in my basement with various reels, long out of service, that I can’t bring myself to throw away. And throwing away is the problem. I can’t do it. So stuff accumulates beyond all reason.

This gets pretty silly as I think of it, but that silliness still won’t take me to the dumpster. Someday I might want or need something from that shelf. Or I might decide to refurbish one of those old reels. A little cleaning, some grease, maybe a few spare parts and any one of them would be fishable again. You never know.

By John Merwin

I took a Johnson Silver Minnow from the tackle box, added a white pork rind strip, and then fastened it to a short wire leader. The shiny spoon glistened in the sunlight as I held it in the air before casting. “That looks like Chapter One in The Book of Pickerel,” said guide Dale Wheaton* from the back of our canoe.

And so it was. The rig caught pickerel all day long as we fished a Washington County lake in far-southeastern Maine; in the back ends of various coves where the lake bottom transitions from hard rock to mud, weeds are abundant, and the pickerel abound. And they are usually — but not always — easy to catch.

By Joe Cermele

Appearing for one week only, direct from the Vegas strip to our ongoing vintage tackle contest, we bring you a whole troop of Miss Bobbie Bobbers. (For $5, I'll send you the uncensored photo. Must be 18 or older). You may recall the topless mermaid lure in the contest a while back, but these ladies are showing a lot more skin. These bobbers were submitted by Robyn Kay, and a the whole box, complete with original display stand, were given to her husband for his 50th birthday. So can Miss Bobbie's money-maker shake in some cash? Let's find out.