Panfish
What is a Trophy Fish
Trophy Fish What Makes Em’ Grow As a lifelong angler I have had the thrill of catching some genuine trophy fish. As a boy, a trophy was anything bigger than the last fish I caught. And in one case it was one that never took the bait, but one I could clearly see as […]
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Give’em What They Want How They Want It
Give’em What They Want How They Want It By Bob Jensen Whether you’re after fish in open water or through the ice, your lure presentation is one of the most important considerations for success. Since ice-fishing season is fast approaching in many areas, now is a good time to think about lure presentation as it […]
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A Day on the Ice with… Me!
A Day on the Ice with… Me! By Rod Woten One of the questions I hear several times every ice season as I’m presenting seminars or making retail in-store appearances is, “what’s it like to be an Ice Team Pro?” Simply put, it is AWESOME! I get to travel the ice belt and talk about […]
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Iowa’s State Parks
Iowa’s State Parks In the last 25 years of technological advancements, I have watched our culture advance at a tremendous pace that, I worry, will never slow down. Phones, computers, iPods, iPads, GPS, electric cars, automatic vacuums, auto lawnmowers, and more! We are certainly making things easier for our lifestyles, but we are also creating […]
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Backwater Hardwater
Backwater Hardwater By Rod Woten Ask any ice angler from Iowa what their favorite fishery is and you’ll hear names like Brushy Creek, Clear Lake, Spirit Lake or Okoboji. For good reason those are all near the top of everyone’s list. There’s another fishery on the state’s eastern seaboard that you don’t hear mentioned much. […]
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The Bad Ice Angler
The Bad Ice Angler By Rod Woten Throughout my years in the ice fishing industry, I’ve fished more lakes than I can count from one end of the ice belt to the other. During this time, I’ve noticed several things that ice anglers do or don’t do that causes them to struggle. These things don’t […]
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Navigating Big Ice
Navigating Big Ice By Rod Woten Why does it always seem that the bigger a body of water you want to fish, the harder the fish are to find? If you think about it from a statistical standpoint, the bigger lakes have more water you have to sort through in order to find fish, which […]
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Best Crappie Baits
Best Crappie Baits Crappie…animals that forage for discrete, isolated resources are often characterized as either “ambush” (sit-and-wait) or “cruise” (active) searchers. Juvenile white crappie, Pomix annularis, search for zooplankton prey using a salutatory search (SS) strategy. Unlike ambush and cruise, SS involves… Had you readers going there for a moment didn’t I… Well lucky […]
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Different Strokes for All Folks
Different Strokes for All Folks By Rod Woten I am a huge proponent of tournament ice angling. Much like any other competitive sport, tournament ice anglers are constantly looking for an advantage over their competition. This relentless drive often leads to innovative new products, outside-the-box-patterns and torture-testing of longstanding equipment and patterns. Tournament ice angling […]
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Raising an Outdoors Child
Train Up A Child When I was a child I had my life, and my parents had theirs; they did not try to weave their lives into my life; we were not best friends. I did what was normal for a nine-year-old boy, while my parents worked, mowed the yard, went to church suppers, […]
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