Looking back at a year of fishing, memories abound of great fish and great places. Next issue, I'll talk about some of the fine fish we caught for the 2006 In-Fisherman Television Specials, which begin airing the first week of January. One highpoint was catching and releasing a 220-pound alligator gar. It's one thing to finally get a chance to catch a fish I've been intrigued by since I was a youngster, quite another to go and catch a fish of a lifetime to boot. Luck plays a role in some successes. Still, the better we plan, the harder we work, the luckier we get.

Even the best-laid plans don't always go smoothly, though. We traveled across parts of the South last winter and spring, from Alabama and Florida through Kentucky and Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Texas, targeting redfish, crappies, smallmouths, largemouths, trout, stripers, and hybrid stripers. Three days of 15-foot seas kept us from fishing for coastal stripers at Nags Head, North Carolina. Tough weather made fishing difficult at Pickwick and Dale Hollow. We blew a truck engine as we arrived to fish for bass at Lake Fork, Texas. That's life on the road, which can be glorious, but also tedious and trying to the max.

I spend every day just about all year long working on fishing -- either television or the magazines. When catching big fish and getting footage and photos is the final measure of success, life centers on the details that finally determine that success. Agreed, that getting in on good fishing is all about being in the right place at the right time. But final success -- that which separates great fishermen from the larger crowd of decent anglers out there today -- always rests on fine-tuning the presentation process, especially getting the lure-thing just right.

Speed and depth control remain paramount in catching fish in every situation, but it also takes fine-tuning beyond that. Lure profile and size are important; so too color and vibration patterns; and certainly the working (or retrieve) method. No one lure works everywhere, all the time, particularly when so many different species and environments are involved.

The way it usually goes is something like this: We are fishing Picton Bay on the Bay of Quinte in eastern Ontario, last August, expecting, because walleyes are holding in weeds, that jigging with plastics will be the best way to catch fish. Each day we catch some walleyes on one of my favorite plastics, the 5-inch Berkley PowerBait Swim Shad, fished on a half-ounce Owner or Matzuo jighead; but the weeds prove too soft and stringy to get this bait through cleanly enough to allow the bait to be a percentage choice.

Working through a lineup of crankbaits, it becomes apparent that the #9 Rapala Tail Dancer is terrific over, around, and through these weeds. It casts well and works at the right depth (5 to 6 feet on 14-pound FireLine) and can be fished quickly or slowly, although quicker is better than slower in the warm water. Most importantly, the wider vibration pattern apparently calls walleyes out of heavy cover. Just as importantly, the wide, distinct wobble diminishes weed hang-ups upon contact; and when fouling does occur a rod snap and resulting rip-wobble from the lure usually clears weeds.

Continued -- click on page link below.