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No one answer for different fish

Stand around a boat ramp or hang around a bait shop long enough and you’ll no doubt hear the most ubiquitous question in fishing: What are they biting? While it’s a common query, it’s actually the wrong question for those who yearn for the scoop on the best trick to score fish. Ask that question and you might get any of a hundred recommendations. Spoons, worms, crankbaits, spinners, buzzbaits, bladed jigs, stick worms, minnows and who-knows-what are among the plethora of options for inquisitive fishers. Facts are, however, the fish don’t prefer one bait over others. ...

Still time for summer fishing

It’s Canfield Fair time, which means summer’s on the run, but the good fishing continues throughout the region for largemouth and smallmouth bass, walleyes and crappies. The fishing isn’t easy at Mosquito, Pymatuning, Shenango, Berlin, Milton and West Branch, but it is proving to be good enough to be optimistic about trips to the lakes. Erie also is producing walleye limits out of Geneva, Ashtabula and Conneaut, as well as big smallmouth bass for those who are good with their sonar out on the ledges and humps. Despite several days of chilly weather, water temperatures at most ...

Wollitz: Catching fish species often a ‘game within a game’

By my unofficial count, I have caught more than 30 species of fish, a testimony to the variety of experiences awaiting anglers around northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. In spite of that variety, some say fishing is “boring.” The same folks may say baseball is boring. But I say fishing and baseball are far from boring, considering the game within the game. There’s so much more to baseball than the duel between the pitcher and batter. And so it is with the game of fishing. Consider that during the years spanning my fishing life, I’ve reeled in nearly three dozen ...

Moments with friends make for fun on the water

A bit of advice: Take advantage of any day you can share on the lake with a bobblehead character or friend associated with the greatest. They’ll get a chuckle out of this, but it’s true. Over the past week, I was joined by fishing friends John Hirschbeck of Beaver Township and Ted Suffolk of Canfield. They’ve been in the Bass Cat several times over the years, and each time is another checkmark on my long list of fun fishing excursions. Ted and John enjoy bass fishing, so we click immediately every time we rig up and head out. Each outing, of course, peels back another layer ...

Morning stillness leads to picturesque moments

The alarm clock kicked into action the other day and my unconscious self’s first instinct was to ignore the signal. Ugh. Not yet. No way. Can’t do it. Leave me be. But then the truth of the day dawned on me: I was going fishing. Suddenly the annoyance on the nightstand was my call to action. Alarm clocks and fishing trips have been two of my essentials for a long time. Pausing now to think about the relationship of the clock and angling actually reveals the irony that on most of my fishing trips, the best action often has almost nothing to do with getting on the water just ...

Column: Coming full circle

It’s funny when things come full circle. I’m a second-generation Bronco fan. I followed in my dad’s footsteps. I’ve been a Broncos fan for 28 years. I am 28 years old. This is something that is ingrained in me. I love the Broncos more than some (and maybe most, depending on the season) actual family members. But it’s a familial connection that sparked that love to begin with. I became a Broncos fan, in a way, because of Randy Gradishar. I wrote about this upon his selection, so I won’t go too deep into this same story again. But long story short: my dad became a fan ...