Slab crappies are meat eaters—sure enough minnow munchers. They take artificials well at times, especially jigs—but big crappie will turn their noses at even the best of the best crappie lures.

Like most anglers of my generation, I started my fishing career using live bait. My first catch was a brook trout that gobbled a garden worm on a long-ago first day of trout season. And while my first ...

A hot-button subject in the world of fishing is the use of live bait. I’m talking about minnows, worms, leeches and all of the other critters that fishermen use to try to coax an unwary fish into ...

This story, “Getting the Bait’s a Bail,” appeared in the May 1970 issue of Outdoor Life. The morning sparkled as bright and shiny as a new dime. The river was clear and purling along, its voices ...

During this transitional time of year, it’s not uncommon for one day of lights-out action to be followed by a total skunking. Even traditional methods of predicting fish behavior like tracking fronts, ...

Mike Hardin, assistant director of Fisheries for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, holds a healthy smallmouth bass caught on a live shiner in December from Lake Cumberland. Late ...