Georgia Ice Plow & Other Cool Stuff

Ever wonder what it looks like when a johnboat crunches its way through rare ice atop a Georgia pond? Lose no more sleep. Click below to see for yourself.

"Georgia Ice Plow" comes from the new Nathaniel Samsel YouTube channel. Nathaniel wanted a place to launch videos that aren't necessarily instructional in nature. Just cool or funny stuff he sees in his outdoor adventures and captures a clip  of with his phone, the GoPro or another camera. He'll still produce and manage the videos on the Jeff Samsel channel. Those are mostly fishing how-to or destination oriented, but now he has a place for more fun stuff.

5,000 Video Views

To me, it's worth noting: The YouTube channel that Nathaniel established for our fishing videos less than six months ago passed 5,000 views this morning. Nathaniel and I have shared in filming duties, but he set up the channel and has done all the video production and posting. As of this morning, we have 24 videos on the channel. Most are fishing how-to, and they range from tackle tips to specific instruction about strategies. Sources include fishing pros, guides, industry experts and even a few by Nathaniel or me. Fishing types discussed include everything from inshore saltwater to ice-fishing. Our most popular videos, so far, have been about crappie fishing. One of my favorite videos, because of it's fun ending, features Nathaniel on the front side of the camera. Take a look:

Small Water Surpise

Nathaniel and I spend a fair amount of time fishing a few little ponds on some friends' property. We spend the most time on the upper pond, both due to convenience and because we catch fish there pretty consistently and know it really well. Our favorite pond, though, is the beaver pond, which is tucked in the woods and a little more remote than the others. The beaver pond is shallow, full of stumps, has grown up banks and is really pretty, and it seems the frogs are always singing around the edges. We sometimes do quite well there, but we had never caught a fish that weighed more than about 2 pounds from it's waters. That is until yesterday, when Nathaniel threw an XCalibur Square Lip crankbait in the right place. See for yourself.

Double Trouble Jigging

White bass serve up serious winter fun, especially when you get atop a decent school and can drop directly to them with jigging lures. Not all jigging rigs and cadences are equal, though, and at times you need to come up with something a little different to tap into the best action. On a recent trip to Oklahoma, Gary Dollahon showed me a cool "shaking" technique he likes to use during the winter, and at times that was by far the best way to draw strikes. I also stumbled across a tandem rig with a spoon and a Bobby Garland Slab Dockt'R, using a little different sort of presentation. It is shown in the video below.

The video, shot by Gary Dollahon and produced by Nathaniel Samsel, is the newest on our YouTube Channel. The channel mostly features how-to videos, and we try to add at least one per week. Several are from bass pros, but we've also included saltwater, trout, ice fishing, a couple from crappie pros and now one about jigging for winter white bass. The channel is only two months old and is just approaching 1,500 total views, so we don't know a lot yet, but the crappie fishing videos have been the most popular in the early going.

New Video: Pro Tip for Catching Bass

This short "tips" video,which was shot while the fall frog bite was going strong on Pickwick Lake, features bass pro and fishing guide Jimmy Mason talking about patterning.

To see more fishing videos produced by Nathaniel Samsel, visit our YouTube Channel.

Cool New Headgear

Nathaniel is spending increasing amounts of fishing time with extra hardware strapped to his head. He likes the "head cam" option for our GoPro Hero2 not only because it makes him look cool but because it looks wherever he does and captures whatever is around him while keeping his hands free for fishing and doing other stuff.

Nathaniel's most recently produced video, "Life From the Top of My Head," brings together a few fun clips he has gotten with the head-mounted GoPro, including his own loss of footing as he descended a seriously steep slope and Asher making the term "backcast" extra literal by hooking me in the back. It also includes the GoPro video that was being shot in the photo above. The video is well worth the couple of minutes it takes to watch.

To see more of the videos that Nathaniel has produced, please visit our YouTube Channel.

"Playing in the Creek" Release

I must break from fish stories for a day to share some exciting news. My son's first CD, Playing in the Creek, will be released in a little more than a week on Monday, March 12. Nathaniel, who is 13 years old, has been seriously anticipating that day for quite some time! Nathaniel plays the mountain dulcimer and has been playing since he was 8 years old. He is the current Southern Regional Mountain Dulcimer Champion and Georgia State Mountain Dulcimer Champion and he finished third in last year's national competition. For more details, including ordering information, please visit nathanielsamsel.com. CD artwork, by the way, was shot along the Tallulah River in North Georgia. We didn't carry rods that day so that we wouldn't get distracted, but its a good place to catch a trout.

Different Kind of Creek Photos

Nathaniel and I spent a couple of hours streamside on Sunday to do some photo work, but oddly for us, no fishing rods were involved. We were on our way to Chattanooga, where Nathaniel would spend the first half of this week recording his first CD, and the Tallulah River provided a really nice setting for what we wanted to accomplish photo-wise. Photos from that day will likely be used as CD cover art and for some of Nathaniel's promotional work after the CD comes out.

Nathaniel's Take on Dry Run

I posted a quick report from the hotel last week after Nathaniel spent a morning fishing Arkansas' Dry Run Creek. I wanted to pass along Nathaniel's perspective on this special stream.

After all, he was the one doing the fish-catching. All I could do was watch and take pictures!

Photo Help

Folks who have been on trips with me and my 12-year-old son Nathaniel know that Nathaniel often is responsible for catching the photo fish needed to get the job done well. That's not the only way he helps me with photos, though. Nathaniel has gotten very good with a camera and often takes shots of me on the water. Switching things around, he also holds a lot of fish for photos, and it is very nice for me to have a young angler in many of my shots. Nathaniel also enjoys working the reflector and putting reflected sunlight onto a photo fish and/or the face of the angler holding the fish.


Nathaniel is interested in doing more with outdoor writing in the long haul, so experiencing my job with me in the field provides great training. He also maintains his own outdoors blog, which chronicles some of our travels together, his days on a local pond and other outdoorsy sorts of stuff. His most recent blog is about our big, goofy lab/pointer mix, Melody.