Wollitz: Valuable lessons can be taken into 2024

October 22, 2023

Anglers who pay attention to the signs around them will almost certainly log a few learnings during their days on the water. Often the signs are from the fish. Sometimes the signals come from the friends with whom we go fishing. Frequently the messages come from Mother Nature herself. Looking back on spring, summer and fall fishing trips, I can identify a variety of discoveries that are now tucked away in my memory bank as investments in the 2024 fishing year. It is tempting to gravitate to areas on lakes where we see clusters of boats, which can be interpreted as evidence the fish ...

Expanded playoff a mistake

October 20, 2023

As regular seasons go, this may be the most irregular of any season in the history of high school football in Trumbull County. How so? When the Trumbull County Coaches Association holds its annual Player of the Year banquet in November, it also presents a Trumbull County Coach of the Year award. Typically, coaches are eligible for the award if their team finishes 8-2 or better or wins a league title. Since those guidelines were established decades ago, there has never been a year in which no coaches met the criteria. Not until this year, that is. Entering week 10, it’s ...

College football losing luster

October 16, 2023

College football is dead. Well, at least what made it special is. I’ll just get this out of the way first. I’m a Michigan fan. Been one my whole life, and have suffered nearly every football season because of it. This is arguably the best time to be a Michigan fan in a long time. It’s one of the best, if not the best Michigan team I’ve seen in my time watching sports. And yet, I don’t really care. My interest in college football is at an all-time low. I still watch almost every game, and know what’s going on, but it’s just not the same. I’m going to try and avoid ...

Local pros dish out fishing tips

October 8, 2023

Anglers long for limits of walleyes, dream about tangling with monster muskies, wonder how to hook Erie steelhead and how to catch Mosquito Lake largemouth bass. They could hire a guide and accomplish all of the above. But first, they should check out the tips that follow from four of our region’s top walleye, bass, steelhead and muskie pros. Steelhead trout are charging around Lake Erie harbors and river mouths right now and Girard’s John Breedlove is hard at work on them. He trolls, catches and releases hundreds of acrobatic steelheads every autumn on spoons like Little ...

Poland angler Cappelli continues to learn despite success

October 1, 2023

Pro walleye angler Sammy Cappelli credits thorough preparation and understanding of marine electronics for the latest championship trophy he has brought home to Poland. Cappelli, who many know as “The Bull,” recently won the prestigious Cabela’s Masters Walleye Circuit “Team of the Year” with partner Tony Karrick of Elgin, Ill. Cappelli and Karrick outscored more than 100 other teams on the national walleye trail, starting with a stirring victory in the frigid season opener in April in Illinois. They added a second-place finish in Green Bay, Wisc., a 10th on Lake Erie out ...

Aquatic plants serve as foundation for food chains

September 24, 2023

A tiny fish last week provided a big clue about the health of one of our weedy reservoirs. Aquatic plants — some native and some invasive — have become well established in many northeastern Ohio reservoirs and rivers and serve as the foundation of food chains that are vigorous from bottom to top. The jig I was swimming last week snagged an inch-long sunfish as I pulled it through an alley in vegetation growing in two feet of water. The bass that I caught before and after snagging the tiny fish sported bulging bellies, no doubt a result of feasting on the forage fish hiding ...