I first used a Penn reel while fishing for flounder with my dad and our friends in Big Assawoman Bay. As a 10-year-old, I had no idea where the reel was made or what its history was. I just knew it worked smoothly and enabled me to catch a bunch of ...
Fish
Luke McFadden: A Young Crabber on the Cutthroat Chesapeake
It’s 5 a.m. when Luke McFadden pulls into the gravel parking lot of the Locust Point Marina. He grabs a small cooler of water from the bed of his white pickup and walks the few steps to the stern of F.V. Southern Girl — his 34-foot fiberglass ...
Fishing Panama, Part 4: Epic Tuna Dive
The sun makes its ascent on the group’s final day in Panama. With clear skies and great weather, they decide to make the most of it. The day starts with fresh-caught early-morning tuna cut into strips and draped over an open campfire to ...
Why Your Fishing Reel Gear Ratio Matters
As anglers, why should we care about the topic of fishing reel gear ratio? Good question. First, let’s be clear about one thing: You can catch plenty of fish without knowing anything about the gear ratio of your fishing reel. If ...
Jamey Caldwell’s Bass Fishing Retirement Plan
Jamey Caldwell is a certified badass. He served in the U.S. Army for seven years with the 75th Ranger Regiment, then another 14 years with an Army Special Missions Unit that maintained a high operational tempo in dangerous places like ...
Father’s Day Gear Guide: Cool Gifts for Rad Dads
Finding the perfect Father’s Day gift is pretty freakin’ hard. What do you get the dude who has absolutely everything? Just stopping to pick up some last-minute, slightly wilted gas station flowers might cut it for Mom, but we promise Dad isn’t ...
Fishing Waders Buying Guide: Everything You Need to Know
Fishing waders exist because the biggest trout are always on the other side of the river, and it’s too far to cast from the bank. To get to those fish, we need to stand in ice-cold water without getting wet and developing hypothermia. We can get ...
Crappie Fishing: Fast Action, Good Eatin’
Many anglers relish the arrival of spring, and crappie fishing is one of the reasons why. Black and white crappie are among the many species of fish that respond to the warming water temperatures of spring. In lakes all across the country, ...
Dead Drift: Fly Fishing Apparel You Want to Wear Off the Water
In fly fishing, a “dead drift” is the perfect float, where the fly drifts freely in the current. The current controls the fly, not the fisherman. The technique is central to the art of fly fishing. Dead Drift is also a kickass clothing brand that ...
Potential World-Record Lake Trout Caught in Colorado – First Look!
Scott Enloe caught what is likely the new all-tackle world-record lake trout in Colorado on May 5 — it’s almost certainly a state-record fish. The absurdly huge laker weighed in at 73.29 pounds and measured a stunning 47 inches long with a 37-inch ...
Watch Spearfishing Champ Justin Lee in ‘By Way of Black Sands’
Justin Lee knows precisely who he is: a spearfishing champion, bowhunter, conservationist, and dedicated family man. Studded with jaw-dropping images of Hawaii’s wild places and narrated by Lee himself, SITKA Films’ new feature By Way of Black Sands ...
Did the American Shad Save George Washington’s Colonial Army?
Shad often lose the freshwater spotlight to trout, salmon, and largemouth bass, but there is no fish more American than the humble shad. The American shad (and its hickory and gizzard shad cousins) have long played a vital role in American ...
New Yeti LoadOut GoBoxes: Rock-Solid Gear Haulers
Yeti, a company famous for turning coolers into status symbols, is expanding its GoBox lineup with two new heavy-duty storage containers to keep your gear as organized and protected as your food and drinks. The new LoadOut series of hard cases now ...
How to Make the Perfect Salmon Burger
When you hear the term salmon burger, you can’t help but think of some overpriced menu item at a pretentious restaurant or some flaccid, flavorless recipe out of a weight-loss magazine. Some of us can even still taste the metallic canned-salmon ...
How To Choose the Best Fish Cleaning Table
Beyond essentials like a filet knife and a scaling tool, a dedicated fish cleaning table should be in every angler's arsenal. Catching fish is a lot more fun than cleaning fish, and at the end of the day, when you grab your stringer or pull up to the ...
Angler Shoots Epic Vid of Breaching Whale Inches from Boat
A father and son were enjoying a successful day fishing for stripers off the Jersey Shore on Oct. 12 when they captured video of a serious lunker that almost took them under. Doug and Zach Piller of Bensalem, Pennsylvania, were fishing near Belmar, ...
Alleged Walleye Tourney Cheaters Charged With 3 Felonies Each
UPDATE Oct. 17, 2022: The two pro anglers who were publicly outed in a viral video for allegedly cheating in an Ohio walleye tournament late last month have officially been charged with a litany of crimes. On Oct. 11, law enforcement officers with ...
Meet Brandon Palaniuk: Hunter, New Dad, and Angler of the Year
Brandon Palaniuk, his wife Tiffany, and their 3-month-old daughter Kora were two hours from home in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, when we got him on the horn this week. They were on the road, traveling from Wisconsin, where Brandon had just wrapped up his ...
Behind on Utah Child Support? No Fishing or Hunting License
If you want to hunt or fish in Utah, you need to pay your child support. If hunters and anglers fall far enough behind in their payments, the state will revoke their hunting and fishing privileges. Period. The Utah law implementing this rule went ...
How Good Is The New Redington Trailblazer Travel Fishing Rod?
Since COVID hit and social distancing became the new norm for Americans coast-to-coast, the call to get outside has been an increasingly attractive alternative to suffering in separate personal bubbles. One outdoor activity that has seen ...
Insane Smoky Mountain Largemouth Bass Action
The second episode of "Fishing the American Dream" rolls into the Great Smoky Mountains, where Oliver Ngy and Austin Neary go big-show with big bait for big largemouth bass. Ngy has heard stories about trophy bass that haunt lakes in the Smokies ...
Hawaiian Cast ‘N’ Blast, Part 2: Hunting Hogs and Spearing Giant Trevally
The second chapter of our cast 'n’ blast adventure (check out Part 1 here) follows Free Range American editor Mike Shea through Hawaii as he does a little bacon harvesting followed by some epic spearfishing in some truly heavenly blue ...
Crushing Big Bass With Oliver Ngy, Brandon Palaniuk, and Roland Martin
Episode one of professional bass angler Oliver Ngy’s "Fishing the American Dream" makes a stop at the Harris Chain of Lakes in central Florida. The Black Rifle Coffee–sponsored pro is in town for his first Bassmaster Open tour stop, but first, he ...
Freedive Safe Hawaii: Saving Kids and Changing Lives
In Hawaii and many other ocean-centered cultures, freediving is a way of life. Learning to become one with the water and rely on it for sustenance — both physical and spiritual — is very much a rite of passage. But it’s also dangerous to the ...
Open Pit Mining May Be Banned in Bristol Bay — Permanently
For most Americans, Alaska exists somewhere between high school geography lessons and Nat Geo documentaries. The scale of its breadth and pristine wildness and why it's called The Last Frontier is beyond the understanding of those born and raised in ...
Cutts, Cutties, and Cutthroats: America’s Frontier Trout
There is a magic hour on the South Fork of the Snake River — maybe only a magic half-hour actually — when cutthroat trout seem to spontaneously appear in the long sweeping riffles that spill into the river’s deep emerald green troughs. The ...
Fatherhood, Sammy Hagar, and Salmon Fishing in Alaska
My son, Cam, had a pretty short list of what he wanted out of our trip to Alaska. “I just want to see one bear,” he said. “If nothing else happens and I see a bear, I’ll be happy.” Running a jet boat back down the Naknek River toward camp ...
Don’t Screw Up Father’s Day: Get Dad Cool Stuff He’ll Actually Use
Shopping for Father’s Day is hard. It’s tempting to just get dad a gimmicky barbecue tool that will be used once before getting hung in the garage for the next decade. Or maybe a new pair of Crocs. But, this year, you don’t have to be that lame. ...
Mahi-Mahi: So Strong They Say It Twice
In Hawaiian, mahi-mahi means “very strong” — but through a linguistic process called reduplication, the Hawaiian people say the word twice to signify greater intensity. In other words, these fish will beat you up. Mahi-mahi, aka ...
‘Revision of a Man’: Army Vet Tackles Modern Manliness With Poetry
Editor's Note: Here at FRA, we are a small but aggressive team. We're like a race car that we’re building while it zips around the track. Extending that analogy, Matt Smythe is the wheels: He is the primary point of contact between our edit team and ...
