By Nick Simonson Catch and release angling isn’t anything new, in fact the conservation tool has been around long enough to have its own acronym of C&R, which is universally known in fishing circles.  At the outset, providing the length or maybe the length and girth of that monster fish of the day wasn’t…

By Nick Simonson The flock rose and fell like a slow pulse, banking and turning against the southerly gusts. They made the sky look like static on an old black and white TV screen long after the daily programming had stopped and the national anthem signaled the end of the broadcast day.  The growing crowd…

  By Nick Simonson   The rush of first ice is in the rear view mirror, and that stretch of more challenging mid-winter fishing is underway.  While February marks the traditional seasonal slowdown in on-ice action in the upper Midwest, the midseason doldrums rarely prevent anglers from making their way out after fish.  Heightened technology…

By Nick Simonson Case upon case of 12 gauge shells piled up in the safe room at the trap club as a line of volunteers – some of them fellow coaches, some parents and some shooters – daisy-chained the 100 brown boxes of ammo through the snow to their resting place along the wall.  While…

  By Nick Simonson   When it comes to fast moving water, or big fish lurking below the school, nothing gets an angler down to business like the addition of a heavy, flashy bead at the front of a fly.  Whether it is a rapidly-flowing stream harboring trout in deeper pockets or tucked into the…