Articles by Cory Schmidt

So far as I can tell, the earliest published mention of the drop-shot appears in Bill Binkelman’s classic book, “Catching Walleyes.” In it, he writes at length about using these rigs, and his...View article

 During the past decade, scientific developments in softbaits—what we used to know as soft plastics—have redefined this category....View article

To know that muskies follow trolled lures is one thing. But to see them, to know for sure, is something else altogether. The drama provided by an underwater camera is exactly that—the “something...View article

Freshly stocked trout can be terribly easy to catch. But after a few years, the survivors—now adult brookies, rainbows, and cutthroats marked with artfully brilliant colors—can be downright frustrating...View article

Don’t expect a 3/8-ounce spoon to drop straight down any ice hole in the Great Lakes. Instead, everything tends to move off to the side until your line looks to be positioned at about a 45-degree...View article

No question that the unmistakable blips sashaying across your electronics are a herd of big ’gills. You’ve been trying to catch them for hours, but no matter what you do, the fish seem entirely...View article

By the time I met Colonel White—an old friend of my father’s who had served along the DMZ in Vietnam, next to the likes of General Norman Schwarzkopf—his focus had shifted from the Army to catching...View article

Many topnotch anglers have long suspected that the walleyes we catch while trolling represent but a fraction of the fish that follow our lures. The truth is, of course, that following fish are nearly...View article