How to Catch Post-Spawn Walleye and Smallmouth Bass in Late May 2026
Post-spawn walleye and smallmouth bass move on a clock. Here’s the late-May 2026 playbook — water temps, structure, and the lures that work right now.
Fishing
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Winter Fishing Safety: Ice, Cold Water & Abort Criteria
Winter fishing safety means defining hard limits, standardizing your procedures, and treating every winter outing as a cold-exposure operation. Operating principle: Abort criteria guardrails come first. Always assume worst-case. Standard definitions used throughout this article: Winter fishing: Any fishing activity when air temperatures are near or below freezing, ice is present, or water temperatures are…
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My Wacky Bush Brings All the Bass to the Yard
Master bait with the two hottest new fishing lures of 2025! The best thing about fishing is all that “me time” that we get while we dip our lines. Trouble is, so much of the commercial bait that’s sold just isn’t … realistic … enough. Forget spinny spoons and shiny minnows; these days, it’s all…
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Wind & Sea: Let’s Go Kite Fishing!
Offshore angling just got a lot more kino … Ever heard of kite fishing? It’s an exhilarating fishing strategy that harnesses the power of ocean wind to create irresistible attraction. The kite keeps live baits on the water’s surface, creating a realistic presentation for surface-feeding fish. As anglers deploy the kites, a large surface area across…
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Thin Ice: Fishing Safely in a Weird Winter
Depending on where you live in the country, Winter 2024 may not be the best ice-fishing year on record. When variable weather like much of America is experiencing strikes, ice conditions will also be variable. It’s important to put safety first if they venture out ice fishing. “Check the ice as you go, avoid areas…
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Where’s America’s Best Bass-Fishing Lake?
Things really are bigger in Texas, and that includes the bass coming out of O.H. Ivie Lake, which claims the coveted spot atop the 2023 Bassmaster Magazine 100 Best Bass Lakes standings for the first time in history. This reservoir has stolen the spotlight over the last three years, producing an eye-popping 15 Legacy Class ShareLunker bass — a designation…
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“Protecting Access for Hunters & Anglers Act” Passes Committee
Public lands are for the public, not just the elite. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) applauds the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee for the bipartisan approval of the Protecting Access for Hunters and Anglers Act, H.R. 615, introduced by U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.). This crucial legislation would ensure our nation’s number…
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Florida Kid Hooks $25K Fishing Scholarship
For 14-year-old angler John Amico of Palm City, Florida, persistence finally paid off, to the tune of a $25,000 scholarship presented by the CCA Florida STAR Tournament and Realtree Fishing. Eleven different species of saltwater fish are eligible for entry during the youth portion of the tournament. Amico won the scholarship after submitting more than…
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Poaching Fish Is Still Poaching (Just Ask These Idiots)
An angler’s tip helped Michigan Department of Natural Resources conservation officers recover more than 460 pounds of illegally taken salmon from a group of anglers who traveled from Colorado to Michigan to fish the Manistee River in October 2022. The group went away with far less than they caught, and will be paying over $6,000…
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B.A.S.S. & C.A.S.T. for Kids Ask: Who’s 2022’s Humanitarian of the Year?
B.A.S.S. and the C.A.S.T. for Kids Foundation are accepting nominations for their annual humanitarian award recognizing the important work being done by many anglers to support fragile populations. The C.A.S.T. for Kids B.A.S.S. Humanitarian Award will honor one B.A.S.S. member who has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to serving groups such as children with special needs, veterans, abuse survivors or…
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Kayak Championship Fishers Angle to Save Sick Child
After finishing second at the 2021 Bassmaster B.A.S.S. Nation Kayak Series National Championship powered by TourneyX on Texas’ Possum Kingdom Lake, angler Joe McElroy from Cullman, Ala., announced he was donating his $5,000 winnings to help a fellow competitor’s young son who is living with a rare disease impacting just five people worldwide. “Sometimes, it’s about timing,”…
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Great Bait, Mate – Now Trash It
Your bait bag might be Patient Zero for the next invasive-species pandemic. Anglers tend to be pretty environmentally conscious folks; after all, nobody likes seeing trash in the water or avoidable fish kills. But there’s an aspect of fishing that many of us probably didn’t consider, and that is the bait that we use. It…
