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The secrets to good bass fishing

Anglers yearn for hot lures, high-tech electronics, sleek boats and the coordinates for the local honey holes, but the truth is they alone are not the real secrets to fishing success. Many people hit the lakes with 100 pounds of lures, thousands of dollars worth of sonar and GPS, 75-mph boats and waypoints snagged from their buddies, but still go home disappointed. All of the gadgets and shortcuts are great. But nothing is more important than putting in the hours, days, months and years that are the foundation for every cast anglers make. Several people told me recently they know a ...

The perks of being a youthful fisherman

There’s something to be said for the kind of enthusiasm that bubbles so exuberantly among youthful anglers. Lots of water has flowed over the dam since I could legitimately claim to be young, but I still love my fishing days as much as I did in years gone by. I readily admit, however, that 4 a.m. wake-up alarms aren’t as welcome as they were a few decades ago. Nevertheless, once I’ve got a couple cups of coffee in me, I’m ready to launch the boat and get on with the day’s fishing. The opportunity to fish with buddies helps make fishing trips fun, which in turn contributes ...

Football needs more Jeff Bayuks

Full disclosure! This was intended to be a feature, a story on the life of a high school football coach who, for the first time in 47 years, is spending his Friday nights in the fall away from the sidelines. Intrigued at how Jeff Bayuk was adapting to his role as a high school football fan, I reached out to the Hall of Fame coach earlier this week to get some insights. Did he miss coaching? Does absence indeed make the heart grow fonder, or is there great relief in watching the game from afar? Bayuk talked about attending the season-opener between Campbell and Liberty. Dom ...

Fishing’s a lifelong learning process

Tick. Tock. Tick. … The clock and the calendar are relentless. Time marches on. Days fly by. The years pile up. Seems like only a few years ago my buddies and I were traipsing the banks of Yellow Creek in the Poland Municipal Forest, a spinning rod in one hand and a can of worms in another. Seems like just last year I went on my first walleye trip on Lake Erie and started to learn the tricks of the trade for Ohio River smallmouth bass. Now it is autumn, just when I was getting dialed in on the summer patterns, fresh off the success of spring when every fish is either hungry or ...

MillerTech’s unique origin and impact on fishing

Anglers today are benefiting from a product born out of necessity in a Northeast Ohio logging operation and brought to market in an unlikely alignment of interests. In fact, the energy powering more and more fishing boats ironically was sparked in the Amish communities of West Farmington and Middlefield, and boosted by a happenstance meeting in Holmes County. Responding to a need he encountered while working for a logging company, Lester Miller of West Farmington noodled up a solution that soon flourished into one of modern fishing’s most celebrated products. The lithium ...

Knowing where to find crappies in the Valley

Social media chatter is getting louder as anglers throughout our region are asking where and when the autumn crappie bite is kicking in. The home range of white and black crappies includes northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Healthy populations of the popular panfish thrive in our local reservoirs. As the days get shorter, the leaves start turning and the prevailing breeze swings out of the northwest, crappies instinctively follow schools of baitfish and other food sources migrating to shallow cover. The fish anglers found in their springtime outings return in October to ...