By Steven Hill

Dale Miller's 14-pound, 14-ounce bass beats the previous state record by two ounces. [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Wolak

It’s March, and that means it’s time to release all that cooped up enthusiasm and get back on the water. Bass fishermen around the country are de-winterizing their boats and spooling nine million yards of fresh line only to get out on the lake and drag lures across the bottom all day at a snail’s pace. To me, that’s like drinking 5 Red Bulls to get pumped up to paint your garage floor. Sorry, but I find the cold-water drag utterly painful, and I could never figure out why so many fishermen lean on it this time of year, especially considering it’s so often aimlessly executed, even when it’s not producing.

If you pay attention you’ll notice that most March tournaments in colder regions, especially those on lakes where the bass are pre-spawn, are won with "fast" techniques; fast-falling, fast-ripping, fast-punching, fast cranking...whatever.

[ Read Full Post ]

Made for use with your favorite hollow-body frog imitators, the Frog Brigade allows you to drag four topwater frogs across the pads or grassbeds at the same time.

Given the recent umbrella-rig craze in the bass fishing world, it was only a matter of time before someone adapted them to topwater fishing. Some of the guides were quick to call it a gimmick; others believed it would work well not just with frog lures but with soft-plastic swimbaits. Several questioned its durability, wondering how long it would hold up after a day of hammering big bass, and a few noted some engineering issues. “The legs need to be a little stiffer to keep more separation between baits,” Paul Keith observed.

My initial thought was that unlike an entire school of bait­fish, which a traditional umbrella rig accurately mimics, four frogs swimming together isn’t something that occurs often in nature. I found that seven out of 10 casts resulted in a tangled rig, and matched with Scum Frogs, the complete package wasn’t very aerodynamic, making it difficult to cast over a distance. This rig may find a home in the boxes of umbrella fanatics, though.
[ Read Full Post ]

By Joe Cermele

We asked 10 top bass guides across the country to evaluate 10 brand-new bass baits. Here's what they learned—including if they performed as advertised, how they fished in various waters, and the mdoels that became their new favorites.

When we rounded up the 10 most unique and innovative new bass lures for 2013, we couldn’t think of anyone better to give them a shake than 10 full-time bass guides from across the U.S. After all, these pros make a living by knowing whether or not a particular lure has a good chance of catching a fish before they even tie it on.  

Late last fall, we gave our panel two weeks to test the baits. We asked for their first impressions before fishing, an evaluation of the lure’s action based on the manufacturer’s description, and if they believed it would catch bass. Additionally, even though it wasn’t the most important data, we factored in the number of fish caught during testing.  

Each guide ranked the lures on a scale from 1 to 10, which we converted into a five-star system. The rankings, along with the recommendations of our experts—plus some observations of my own—will tell you which... [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Wolak

Editor's Note: Please help me welcome good friend and bass pro Dave Wolak to the F&S blog roll. Starting today, and every Monday from here out, Dave will be injecting this blog with all sorts of bassy goodness. He has more than 20 combined B.A.S.S. and FLW top-10 finishes, has collected more than $1 million in tourney winnings, and has fished more bodies of water than most of us ever will. I'm pumped that he's going to be sharing his bass knowledge here. - Joe Cermele

OK, so I didn't go to the Bassmaster Classic this year. It’s not like I’ve never been. I’ve fished it 5 times, and even years when I wasn’t fishing the tournament, I usually went just to shake hands and kiss babies (kidding about the babies). It’s just good PR for a bass pro to be on site at the biggest tournament of the season, but this year I needed a break. Being a bass pro isn't always a cakewalk like many people think. It’s a job with some of the highest highs and some of the most grueling lows. Many of these are experienced one way or another during Classic week. So to kick off my blogs, I thought I’d open my mental logbook of past Classic experiences and share some of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good: Checking out new tackle and equipment, new boats, and frolicking among a sea of colorful tournament jerseys.

The Bad: Listening to countless pitches about why I should be using product X. I just politely tell these people I already have a bagel hole puncher that also tunes crankbaits.

[ Read Full Post ]

By Jonathan Miles

We've compiled 15 of our favorite fish recipes from the magazine's resident Wild Chef, Jonathan Miles. Below you'll find all sorts of delicious ways to poach, fry, grill, steam, bake, and pickle your catch. Now, all you have to do is catch dinner.

The best largemouth bass fishing I’ve ever encountered was at Lake Huites, a vast impoundment on the outskirts of the Sierra Madre Occidentals in Sinaloa, Mexico. In one tiny pueblo, we arrived in the midst of a festival: young men with guitars playing on the corners, the local Mayo Indians performing their deer dance, a thousand bats fluttering above the trees of the plaza, and street-food vendors everywhere, some serving fish tacos made with tilapia and bass netted from local reservoirs. Here is a recipe for my best imitation of those tacos. It works with any firm, lean fish.  FULL RECIPE

I first encountered fish jerky during a marlin tournament in Kona, Hawaii. It was steeped in the island flavors of ginger, soy, and pineapple. Here is my best approximation of that Hawaiian treat. [ Read Full Post ]