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Crappies can save the day

By no measure would I claim to be an expert on fishing for crappies, but I have been enjoying a pretty good catch rate this spring. The majority of my fishing excursions are for other species, including my favorite largemouth and smallmouth bass. But crappies are a reliable fall-back when the other fish are not in the mood. Crappies thrive in Mosquito, Pymatuning, Milton, Berlin, Shenango and other reservoirs in northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Their populations are healthy and their appetites are big, which makes them a favorite of anglers here in our region and across ...

Strahm’s legacy starts with Warren Western Reserve-Harding rivalry

Sorry to hear about the passing of legendary Findlay College football coach Dick Strahm, who died Tuesday at age 92. Sadly, his wife died on the same day. Strahm led the Oilers to four NAIA national championships during a 24-year run. He’s enshrined in both the NAIA and National College Football Hall of Fames. Strahm’s name is still remembered among older citizens that were raised in Warren as the first head football coach at Warren Western Reserve High School. He had a short run of four years before heading to the college ranks at the University of Toledo. Strahm is arguably ...

The agony of dealing with mayflies while fishing

The words roll off the tongues of Lake Erie walleye anglers with disdain. “The mayflies are hatching.” They are words no walleye angler wants to hear. Every year from late May through June, just as the weather is getting reliably good and anglers are itching to get out on Erie, Mother Nature throws us her mayfly curveball. Mayflies are the flying insects that emerge from their nymph stage from the bottom mud of Lake Erie. They rise to the surface and molt into adults with wings that enable them to fly from the surface. When the hatch is in full bloom, we are confronted ...

MLB needs to end CBA with a cap and floor

It’s that time of the decade again. The point where finances seep into America’s past time. Over the last couple days, the MLB Players Association and Major League Baseball submitted their initial proposals for the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement, with the current CBA set to expire on Dec. 1. The expectations have been that there could be a work stoppage – more than likely a lockout, honestly – due to the relationship between the union and the owners still resembling a couple filing for a ugly divorce. Before getting into the meat of it, I come from a union family. ...

Life, art and fishing lures

Fishing lures have been works of art for as long as people have applied their imagination to fashion bone, wood, feathers, metal and string into tools capable of convincing wild animals to attempt to eat them. Inanimate though they are, lures come alive in the hands of skilled anglers who know how to drift or drag them in the vicinity of fish. The familiar saying that life imitates art came to mind recently when I spied a sunfish on the surface of the lake. While playwright Oscar Wilde was not discussing fishing when he famously wrote “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates ...

It’s never too late to learn from a veteran fisherman

The fifth fish Ray hoisted over the gunwale of the Bass Cat was the proof I needed that I should accept his offer to share one of his lures. Sometimes I need the evidence to hit me in the head. Fishing buddy Ray Halter and I teamed up last week to explore one of our favorite lakes in search of springtime largemouth bass. Ray was the longtime owner of The Rodmaker’s Shop in Strongsville, one of northeast Ohio’s premier fishing tackle stores, and even as he approaches his 80th birthday still gets on the water two or three days a week. He’s learned a thing or two across the ...