The Story Behind The Stories

Fishing with outdoor writers is something I do with regularity, as part of my profession. It’s my job to lead the industry’s top story tellers to the fishing of a lifetime – most often the pursuit of smallmouth on the Great Lakes. Whether its magazine writers, TV show hosts, or Internet icons, they all anticipate coming to this part of the world and wrestling in smallmouth so big they look like largemouth, or Tuna, or something out of a record book.

The first and only time I had fished with outdoor icon John Neporadny was several years prior on the Detroit River, when the fishery was at its prime. If I remember correctly, Neporadny, a friend, and I anchored the boat on one spot and caught three to five pound smallmouth for three days. That’s how big the schools of fish were back then. Find the right cast and catch them until it got boring. Obviously, I had a lot to live up to on this trip.

July brought John to my home lake of St. Clair. Fishing had been a little difficult by St. Clair standards, but still decent. After John’s late plane ride in, we decided to hit the lake for an evening of largemouth fishing. We ran the boat about 100 feet out of the idle zone. John had one on his second cast. Things were looking good. We proceeded to catch about 50 largemouths from one to 3 ½ pounds in one little area. The key was baitfish and a little inside grass line – the wind had blown in there the days previous, and the area was full of birds and bait. Lesson one on St. Clair: always watch the birds. I caught them flipping a Beaver, John caught them on the new TABU Jig. It was a great start.

The following days found us pursuing open water smallmouth in Canadian waters. We fished isolated sandy spots in 16-20 feet of water. All the fish were in tight schools. The lake was D-E-A-D calm both days, making it tough to cover water, and the temps soared into the mid 90’s. My previous crankbait bite died, so we had to break out the drop shots. St. Clair lesson two: when things look grim, like having an outdoor writer fly up from Missouri and the fish aren’t biting, get out a drop shot and put everything else away. We ended up catching several dozen fish each day on the new Trigger X baits and the reliable Gulp! leech. John took a bunch of photos of the new Plano Liqui-Bait Locker. This box really is the deal for Gulp, Gulp Alive and Trigger-X. It SEALS the baits, and the scent. Trust me, there’s no other way to transport this stuff on the Great Lakes.

In the end, John focused on my off-the-wall tactics of Great Lakes smallmouth fishing. I showed him how I snap a giant jig head on a tube. We talked about catching fish you see on the electronics. He reviewed how everything in my boat is waterproof. We caught a bunch of bass – and we caught a few muskies and walleye. Some even jumped for the pictures. Lesson three: make sure when attempting to photograph the largest fish of the trip jumping, the fish is hooked well…