Fly Lesson Video

I noted in a recent blog post that Asher and I recently took an instructional flyfishing trip on the Chattahoochee River with Unicoi Outfitters in nearby Helen, Georgia. This little video shows the great job that Jake did teaching Asher, who had never flyfished previously. Enjoy.

How to Imitate a School of Shad with One Lure

You may have heard a bit of the buzz about the new BaitBall Series of lures that LIVETARGET introduced at ICAST. This short video with Elite Series pro Stephen Browning explains the concept and talks about how to use these lures to catch bass. For more videos, please visit the our YouTube Channel.

Gear: Plano 3700 Guide Series, ICAST Winner

Think that all tackle bags are created equal, beyond considerations of size? Think again. Take a look at this video as industry insider David Rose tells about the new Plano Guide Series Tackle Bag that took best of show for tackle management at this year's ICAST show. As David breaks down the features, think about your own fishing situations, the stuff you want to keep dry or protected, the baits types that are working best and that you want to keep handy and the benefit of things like a bag that doesn't fill with water when the rain decides to fall while you are fishing. Make it personal to your own situations and it's pretty easy to see what set apart this gear bag and helped make it winner in the New Product Showcase. For more fishing videos, be sure to check out Jeff Samsel on YouTube.

Gear: i-Kam Xtreme

Sunglasses or video camera? Yes & yes.

I've only taken one trip since the arrival of my Hunter Specialties I-kam Xtreme sunglasses, and I'm already thrilled with the results. The little hole in the middle, right between the glasses' lenses, contains the video camera lens, so these glasses pick up everything you're looking at as long as they are running.

Click below and see for yourself. Nathaniel shot this video of an Arkansas trout battle just by fishing with the "glasses on." The shot at the end of me taking a photo of him is with the glasses on a rock, pointed at us, while we were unhooking the fish, getting photos and letting it go. So the whole thing is documented, from cast to release. Very cool stuff. We also got footage running in a boat, casting for bass, floating in a canoe...

With a micro SD card inserted, the I-kam Xtreme holds about three hours of footage, so you can run the camera pretty liberally if you think something cool might happen. You also can change out the lenses to clear lenses -- I suppose mostly for indoor shooting -- but I don't see doing that very often. They actually served nicely as sunglasses, camera function aside.

You can bet I'll have the card cleared and be ready to do more filming next week when I leave for western Pennsylvania to fish three different lakes in three days! More i-Kam Xtreme videos to follow for sure!

Thursday Tips: Really Wrap Your Rods

We all know that we never should lay our rods in the boat or in the truck with lures hanging loose or simply reeled to the tips. Hooks or lures need to be hung in a hook-holder, onto the reel or through a low rod eye, and the line should be wrapped around the rod. In fact, at day's end, it doesn't hurt to remove lures or to put covers over lures and/or rods. So today's tip isn't about how to do those things. Today's tip -- and it may be more to Jeff Samsel than anyone else -- it simply TO do those things. Properly hanging a lure and wrapping a rod only takes a moment, and it spares so many problems caused by lines tangling, lures grabbing one another, hooks finding truck seats or raingear...

Of course, the more rods you use, the more important the wrapping becomes and the more essential it becomes that you use a good system. No one know that better than a crappie fisherman who uses spider rigs, so I asked Crappie NOW co-publisher TJ Stallings for his input about effective rod wrapping. Here's what TJ had to say:

Thursday Tips: Use Bigger Crappie Jigs

It's a theme I hear repeatedly from top crappie tournament pros and guides. As often as the guys who catch crappie every day say it, though, many fishermen have trouble believing that anyone really uses 2-inch grubs, 1/4-ounce jigheads and even crankbaits for crappie fishing. In the video pasted in below, crappie expert Todd Huckabee explains why he uses 2-inch baits and 1/4-ounce heads and demonstrates that such an offering truly isn't very big for even an average-sized crappie.

To see more fishing how-to videos, check out our YouTube Channel.

Winter Chilled Again

A week ago today, the afternoon got so nice that Nathaniel and I just had to slip out to the ponds for a short outing. We fished the beaver pond and caught five fish, including the big one pictured above, in about an hour of fishing. (Be sure to check out the video report if you've not done so already!)

Nathaniel and I have both been itching to get back out ever since that day, but neither has had a good opportunity. That is until yesterday, when Nathaniel had the afternoon free. However, his return trip was in the middle of a cold spell that reminds us winter isn't over, and the wind was blowing fairly hard. Nathaniel spend three or four hours and tried a variety of approaches, fishing all three ponds, and the grand sum of his catch was exactly zero fish.

Seeing how severely the pond fish change their attitudes with weather changes makes me think about the 53 anglers who are about to compete for half a million dollars in the Bassmaster Classic. They've spent three days practicing, so far, but conditions are changing daily on Grand Lake O' the Cherokees, and they only get one more partial day to practice before the big event begins on Friday. As of now it looks like the Classic will start out very cold (low of 27 on Friday) but a slight warming trend will occur (high of 68 on Sunday). Of course, that might change a lot between now and then!

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.

Hook More Fish

Do you do too much swinging and missing when you fish for bass, or do you hook fish initially, only to have them throw the hook when they jump? FLW Tour pro Marty Stone has made a lifelong study of what works and what doesn't work for him when it comes time to set the hook, and he sums it up nicely in this short video. Check it out.

Video Tip from Terry "Big Show" Scroggins

To see more fishing videos produced by Nathaniel Samsel of Samsel Communications, please visit our YouTube channel.

Bait Strategies for Trout

My thoughts about bait fishing for trout, as shared at a father-son campout with the men and boys from our church. Video produced by Nathaniel Samsel. To see more fishing videos, please visit our YouTube channel.

My Little Green Camera

If you were to see me in a creek or a boat, I'd most likely have a green and back, rubbery looking camera hanging around my neck (or in my hand, with my finger on the button). That camera, a waterproof, shockproof and freezeproof point-and-shoot made by Pentax, has become one of of my most favored and most valuable tools.

I bought my "little green camera," as I usually call it, a couple of years ago, primarily for wading trout streams and floating in canoes. I wanted a camera I didn't have to keep stowed in a Pelican Case and that I wouldn't need to wrestle out every time I wanted a single shot. It's performed in that role exactly as I had hoped, but I've also learned that I like having a quick and handy camera even when I don't need the water protection. It takes great, high-resolution photos, so I use it for a lot of quick shots of fishermen and gear when I am out in the boat or just walking around. It also shoots better macro than I can get with my SLR, and it's loaded with cool pre-sets for special effects. I've never gotten very good with it for inside photos, but inside pictures are rarely important for my work and there's no need for a camera to be waterproof when I'm inside.

Lately Nathaniel and I have been playing more with underwater uses -- especially underwater video -- and I'm pretty sure that's going to be something we'll do more with in the future. The newest video on our YouTube channel, which features me talking about trout lures, includes some underwater footage of trout lures in action and even a trout on the line, and Nathaniel shot all the underwater stuff with the little green camera. I'll probably also use it as a field video camera for getting tips from fishing pros and guides when Nathaniel isn't with me.

Despite having owned my little green camera a couple of years, I'm continuing to discover new applications and learning how to better use its tools. And the more I discover, the more I like it, which is why I'm rarely without it afield.

My camera is a Pentax Optio W90. Looking at Pentax's website, it appears the newest generation of the same type basic camera is the Vermillion Red Optio WG-2. I'd be surprised if it doesn't do all the same stuff and more, except better, and their current online price of $249.99 is about what I believe I paid for mine. I may eventually find out how I like the new version. The only shortfall of my little green camera is that I only own one, and Nathaniel and often have to pass it back and forth in the creek or the boat. Maybe some day he'll be sporting a "little red camera" in photos of him afield!

Photo courtesy of of Pentax.

Video Tip: Keeping Rods Untangled

When you routinely fish with spreads of eight rods, and you keep two or three sets of rods rigged and ready in your boat, it's critical to have a good system for wrapping your rods. Legendary crappie fisherman Ronnie Capps shares his system.

For more video tips and fishing clips, please visit the Samsel Communications YouTube Channel.