Slab crappies are meat eaters—sure enough minnow munchers. They take artificials well at times, especially jigs—but big crappie will turn their noses at even the best of the best crappie lures.

Visit your nearby bait-and-tackle store, or roam the aisles of Bass Pro Shop, and you’ll be amazed at the variety of jig heads filling the peg boards. Some plain, but most painted in every color ...

We’re not here to take sides. We’re not here to end the debate forever. We are, however, here to say that there are times when rigging with bait—either live or dead—will outfish artificial lures, even ...

We often talk about fishing techniques and fish location and things like that, and sometimes we forget about the nuts and bolts of fishing. A regular reader of this column contacted me recently and ...