For other great Hardy reels and other fly fishing reels, rods and gear click on the picture of the Hardy Zane Ti reel above.

But what if that next fish is the big one? What if this whole time you’ve been fishing in the wrong spot and if you go down the shore a little bit rather than heading home, you snag that big one? What if you change your lure and go smaller? Will that entice the “just one more fish” to bite?

You may never know unless you go by the rule of “just one more fish”. Maybe you should switch from your spinning rod to a fly rod. Maybe a clouser minnow on a fly rod will get that big small mouth to bite. You know he’s down there. You anticipate him biting everytime you reel in your line but he doesn’t bite. You don’t get frustrated, you just get more curious as to what that fish is thinking. Sure, your supper is getting cold and your wife is getting perturbed but there’s a big fish down there and you’ve got to catch him. Fret not, as fishermen we’re all in the same boat and we understand our love which others may call a disease or addiction. It’s the joy of fishing. It’s the excitement of the hunt for the big one and it’s just one more fish.

This past Saturday was an excellent day of fishing in Indiana where I live. Within an hour, I caught about two dozen bluegill, a nice white bass and about a 3-pound largemouth bass on Morse Reservoir in Noblesville, IN. The only problem, I only had an hour to fish. A front was moving through, it was nice and cloudy, it was perfect conditions for fishing. And apparently perfect conditions for a neighborhood yard sale of which I tended over for most of the day. In the end, the fishing was much more productive in the hour I had compared to the 6 hours spent at the yard sale.

It’s times like these when I wish I had a time machine or at the very least a time freezer. Sunday may have been a good day, the front had moved through and there was light rain but I was on the road visiting family. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and I love visiting them and I don’t want to start any family wars. But if I had a time freezer, I could freeze time, visit the family, come back and unfreeze time to see if Sunday was a good day of fishing. If not, there’s always football.

Perhaps I should schedule my life around the weather and pressure fronts. If it’s cloudy, a front is moving through, or it’s lightly raining; then that is fishing time. When it’s sunny and clear skies with high pressure, that’s family road trip time. Or perhaps I could always clone myself. While one of me does everything but fishing, the other does only fishing. The only problem with that I could see is that I get jealous of the fishing me. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow or right now. Happy fishing and tight lines.

On my fishing bench in my garage I’ve got tackle, fly tying supplies, different spools of fishing lines, nets, fishing gear, assorted tackle boxes, disembodied soft plastic lizards and worms my daughter got a hold of, a bunch of fishing books and my Grandfather’s old wooden lures. My fishing bench is a nice visual timeline of the old days of fishing to the modern “can never have enough gear” days of today. While I’m not about to throw out all my cool gear, I do sometimes wonder how it was back then.

Back then, a man just needed a fishing rod and reel and some lures. It didn’t matter what brand or how many bearings his reel had (I’m guessing anywhere from one to none at all). He didn’t polarized sunglasses or a state-of-the-art fish system to track the barometric pressure, the fish, the topography and probably his car keys if he looses them. Nope. A fisherman just needed his rod and reel and some lures. And the lures were just simple wood carved pieces painted with hooks attached. They’re really quite beautiful lures and judging by the wear on them, I’d say they were also very popular with the fishes. But when you think of it, fishing really hasn’t changed that dramatically, it’s just become more commercialized. We still use a rod and a reel and we still use the style of lures they used back then like crankbaits and top waters, but the lure selection has increased dramatically and the choice in rods and reels has done the same.

The other day, my son had a piece of bamboo and wanted to make a fishing pole out of it. So I got some monofilament and tied it to the end of the stick and tied on a Wooly Bugger fly. We took it down to the lake and he tossed it out and pulled it back to shore. We didn’t catch anything but I’m sure eventually a little bluegill would have bit it and we would have had success with the most simplest of tools. An old cane pole and a Folgers coffee can full of worms, do I miss those times? Not really. But every once in a while, it’s kind of nice to think about and perhaps step down to. I think the reason so many people go fishing is because of the peace and quiet and how relaxing it is. Beneath all the shiny new gear and technology is really a simple sport that has brought joy to fishermen for centuries. So they next time, you’re cursing at your tangled line on your carbon-graphite, 300-bearing reel; take a deep breathe and appreciate the fact that you’re fishing. You can always get a better reel, but you can’t get a better past-time than fishing. Enjoy it and happy fishing.

While I love fishing topwaters and dry flies, sometimes the fish aren’t there. When there are no clouds out and the sun is shining bright, the fish tend to go to deeper waters, bottom cover and off the ledges. This is a good time to get out the crankbaits. Crankbaits allow you to fish the deep depths down to about 20 feet depending on the lip of the crankbait. Crankbaits are also popular because they mimic the bait fish the big fish go after.

The first step in crankbait fishing is to choose the right color and the right depth. Take a look at the bait fish that are swimming around or ask a fellow fisherman and pick a crankbait based on the color of the baitfish. For murkier waters, it’s sometimes good to go with a brighter color crankbait like orange, yellow or white. Using a medium-action rod toss the crankbaits up to the shore lines, along cover, down drop offs and around any deep cover like rocks, trees and brush. Crank baits work better when you retrieve them in areas where there aren’t many weeds. They tend to snag on weeds but can be bounced off the bottom because the hooks hover higher than the lip of the crankbait. Also by varying up your retrieve, you can dial in your speed and figure out how the fish are hitting. Sometimes depending on fronts and barometric pressure, the fish are moving slower and won’t go after a fast moving bait. Other times when a front is moving on and the barometric pressure is fluctuating, fish tend to go on a feeding frenzy and will go after the fast running crankbaits.

The biggest part of fishing crankbaits, as is anything involving fishing, is to learn the waters, the baitfish and ask the local fisherman what works best for them. You can learn a lot by simply taking a little time before tossing your line out to study the waters and the spots where the fish seem to congregate. Good luck and happy fishing.