It took 43 years for the old record to fall, but the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has officially announced a new record king salmon for the state, and for Lake Michigan. The kicker is, the catch was hauled in by a teenage salmon-fishing ...
Freshwater
Roadless Rule Reinstated in Tongass National Forest
More than 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska are safe once again from almost certain logging and mining greenlighted by the last administration. An exemption to the Roadless Rule that was approved by then President ...
California Heat Wave Threatens Chinook Salmon Survival
Boiling water and babies never mix, but that’s exactly what’s happening to juvenile chinook salmon in California’s Sacramento River. Extremely high temperatures are creating “abnormally hot underwater conditions” that could result in a “near-complete ...
North Carolina Blue Catfish Breaks State Record by 5 Pounds
Rocky Baker's electronic fish scale is rated to 110 pounds. When the screen said "overloaded" before he was even able to hoist the behemoth blue catfish off the bottom of the boat, his response was pretty much the same as every other angler in a ...
Meth Trout: Fish Are Getting Hooked on Crank From Our Poop
Fish are getting addicted to meth and are starting to prefer waterways with a little ice in them. Yes, that’s a real thing that’s happening. The fun thing about drugs consumed by human beings — legally or otherwise — is that they’re never ...
52,000 Fish Found Dead in Kansas City River
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources is trying to figure out why 52,000 fish were found dead in Brush Creek just south of Kansas City. A total of 1,900 common carp, 240 silver carp, and 50,000 sunfish went belly-up throughout a ...
A Father’s Day Lesson: When the Bass Aren’t Biting
"Never curse a sunfish," my dad would say. "It could be the only thing you catch." Even as a kid, I understood the sentiment. But when I was fishing for bass, I still thought it was a ration of shit. If I couldn’t manage a largemouth, no amount of ...
Panfish Po’Boy: A Simple, Delicious Classic
If you’ve only caught one fish in your life, it was probably a panfish. Most anglers cut their teeth on bluegills, pumpkinseeds, and other little scrappers. While panfish aren’t known for being particularly challenging to catch, they're downright fun ...
California Drought Amplifies Threat to Endangered Salmon and Steelhead
TikTok influencers aren’t the only thirsty critters in California. Thanks to the severe drought, farmers, forests, and fish are, too. This past May was the fifth-driest May and 2021, to date, is the 15th-driest year for the Golden State over the past ...
Montana Biologists Stumped Over Brown Trout Decline
Brown trout numbers are dropping across southwest Montana — and biologists don’t know why. Angling pressure, warming water, and the ongoing drought could all be reasons behind that widespread decrease across many of the region’s rivers, but right ...
West Virginia Angler Lands New Muskie State Record
All it took was 15 minutes and some major luck for Chase Gibson to land a new West Virginia muskie record. The fishing guide caught the new state-record muskellunge, which weighed 39.6 pounds and measured 54 inches long, on Burnsville Lake on April ...
Century-Old Sturgeon Caught in Detroit River
A 6-foot, 10-inch, 240-pound sturgeon was recently pulled from the Detroit River and recorded by biologists as one of the largest in the nation. The big female was estimated to be at least 100 years old. For context, when this fish was born, ...
In Praise of Shad
Shad and shad fishing became real for me on a backwater hole in eastern North Carolina when my first buck hickory danced across the water on his tail like a miniaturized, silver-scaled tarpon. I was hooked more surely than that spawning fish ...
Minnesota: There’s a New Trophy Game Fish in Town
Pike just aren’t cutting it anymore. Minnesota wants its monster sunfish back. In light of angler reports of declining sunfish size in the land of 10,000 lakes, the state’s Department of Natural Resources has announced new regulations that aim to ...
Take Down Those Dams: New Legislation Could Save Snake River Salmon
Rep. Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican congressman, has just put the Northwest energy and agriculture sector on notice: Salmon and steelhead will join them at the table, and not as the entrée. In a video statement posted over the weekend, Simpson ...
Where the Brook Trout Run: Pond in the River
If I’m in Maine, it’s raining. This trip was no different, with an early spring drizzle dancing on the lake’s surface as we put in on the southern corner like we had so many times before. As the sun began its westward procession across the gray sky, ...
Muskie Fishing: Fish of a Lifetime on Ontario’s Pipestone Lake
It was only a matter of time before someone hooked into a monster. That someone happened to be my uncle. While leisurely patrolling patches of weeds sprouting inside a shallow bay, he saw a fish — a BIG fish — swimming away from the boat. Without ...
The Frank: A Fly-in, Fly-Fishing Adventure in Idaho’s Largest Wilderness
There is a rattlesnake somewhere near my left boot. I can hear it, but I can’t see it. My dad is sitting on the ground 10 yards away with his back against a log, holding a sandwich in one hand and pointing frantically with the ...
Fish Candy: Dry-Brined and Smoked Lake Trout
The best part about fishing with Big Spoon Sportfishing isn’t all the fish you catch but the snacks that Capt. Chris Bomysoad serves up on the water. “Fishermen,” he likes to say, “fish on their stomach,” so this New York guide keeps his clients ...
Noodling: My First Time Hillbilly Hand-Fishing for Alabama Lake Monsters
noodling (verb) A slightly deranged person holds their breath, submerges themselves under water, shoves their entire arm into a muddy hole, and then uses their hand as bait in order to lure a giant catfish into biting them so ...
