Field Notes
Species
How to catch specific fish: habitat, seasons, tackle, and technique.
Yellowtail Snapper, Species
How to Catch Yellowtail Snapper: The Complete Guide
How to catch yellowtail snapper — the wary, delicious reef snapper of the Keys and Caribbean, caught by chumming them up and drifting light baits back in the slick. Learn the chum-and-flatline game, sand balls, light rigs, the best baits, and night fishing for flags.
Yellowtail Amberjack, Species
How to Catch Yellowtail Amberjack: The Complete Angler's Guide
Yellowtail amberjack — California yellowtail, yellowtail kingfish, hamachi — are among the hardest-pulling inshore gamefish in the ocean. Here's how to find, hook, and land them on live bait, jigs, and topwater.
Yellowmouth Grouper, Species
How to Catch Yellowmouth Grouper: Reef & Ledge Tactics
Yellowmouth grouper are the sleek, reticulated groupers of Atlantic and Caribbean reefs — hard-pulling ambush predators caught on live bait, knocker rigs, and trolled plugs. Learn where they hold, the rigs and baits, and how to fish them right.
Yellowfin Tuna, Species
How to Catch Yellowfin Tuna: The Complete Guide
How to catch yellowfin tuna — the powerful, blistering-fast bruiser of the blue water. Learn to run and gun on breaking fish, troll spreader bars, chunk, pop topwaters, jig, and pitch live bait for these hard-pulling, delicious tuna.
Yellowfin Grouper, Species
How to Catch Yellowfin Grouper: The Complete Guide
The yellowfin grouper is a hard-fighting, color-changing reef predator with yellow-margined pectoral fins and a leopard-spotted body. Here is how to find and catch them.
Yellow Perch, Species
How to Catch Yellow Perch: Jigs, Minnows, and Finding the School
How to catch yellow perch — the golden, schooling panfish that many rate the best-eating fish in fresh water. Learn to find the roaming schools and fish jig-and-minnow, perch rigs, spoons, and ice tactics step by step.
Wreckfish, Species
How to Catch Wreckfish: The Complete Guide
The wreckfish is a giant, deep-dwelling bottom fish caught at extreme depths over rocky structure. Here is how to deep drop for these powerful deep-sea bruisers.
Winter Flounder, Species
How to Catch Winter Flounder: Rigs, Chum & Bay Tactics
Winter flounder — blackbacks — are the Northeast's beloved spring flatfish: a bay-and-estuary bottom fish caught on small hooks, worms, and a good chum slick. Learn the spreader rig, chumming, the best baits, and where to find them.
White Sucker, Species
How to Catch White Sucker: The Complete Guide
The white sucker is an abundant, hard-pulling bottom fish that's easy to catch on worms, great as bait, and surprisingly good smoked. Here is how to catch them.
White Sturgeon, Species
How to Catch White Sturgeon: Tactics for the Freshwater Leviathan
How to catch white sturgeon — the prehistoric, giant, catch-and-release trophy that is North America's largest freshwater fish. Learn where these leviathans hold, the best baits, and how to rig, fight, and responsibly release them step by step.
White Seabass, Species
How to Catch White Seabass: The Complete Guide
The white seabass is the ghost of the California kelp — a big, wary croaker that tests every angler. Here's how to crack the code and land one.
White Perch, Species
How to Catch White Perch: The Complete Guide
White perch are abundant, schooling, and delicious — a favorite of East Coast anglers who catch them by the cooler-full. Here is how to find and catch them.
White Marlin, Species
How to Catch White Marlin: The Complete Guide
How to catch white marlin — the acrobatic, finicky, light-tackle billfish of the canyons. Learn dredge and teaser tactics, small circle-hook ballyhoo on the dink rod, the drop-back hookset, leadering, and how to release these prized fish.
White Crappie, Species
How to Catch White Crappie: The Complete Guide
The white crappie is a hardy, abundant panfish that thrives in stained reservoirs and rivers. Here's how to catch them on jigs, minnows, trolling, and around cover.
White Bass, Species
How to Catch White Bass: The Complete Guide
White bass travel in huge schools and bite with abandon — when you find them, it's a fish a cast. Here's how to cash in on the run and the jumps.
Weakfish, Species
How to Catch Weakfish: The Complete Guide
The weakfish, or gray trout, is a beautiful, hard-hitting inshore drum of the Atlantic coast. Here is how to catch these prized spring and fall gamefish.
Warsaw Grouper, Species
How to Catch Warsaw Grouper: The Complete Guide
The Warsaw grouper is the giant of the Atlantic groupers — a deep-water bruiser that can top 400 pounds. Here is how to find, hook, and handle these monsters.
Warmouth, Species
How to Catch Warmouth: The Complete Guide
The warmouth is a big-mouthed, red-eyed sunfish that ambushes from thick cover and eats almost anything. Here's how to catch these hard-hitting 'goggle-eyes.'
Walleye, Species
How to Catch Walleye: Jigs, Live-Bait Rigs, and Trolling Tactics
How to catch walleye — the low-light predator and best-eating fish in freshwater. Learn where they hold in lakes and rivers and how to fish every core walleye technique (jig, Lindy rig, crawler harness, slip bobber, trolling) with step-by-step rigging.
Wahoo, Species
How to Catch Wahoo: The Complete Guide to the Fastest Fish
How to catch wahoo — one of the fastest fish in the ocean, a torpedo-shaped speedster with razor teeth and a screaming run. Learn high-speed trolling, deep planer trolling, wire rigs, slow-trolling baits, jigging, and how to land these blue-water rockets.
Vermilion Snapper, Species
How to Catch Vermilion Snapper: The Complete Guide
The vermilion snapper, or beeliner, is an abundant, delicious deep-reef snapper caught by the cooler-full. Here is how to catch these tasty Gulf and Atlantic favorites.
Tripletail, Species
How to Catch Tripletail: Sight-Fishing the Floating Oddball
How to catch tripletail — the camouflaged oddball that floats on its side near buoys and crab traps, mimicking debris. Learn to spot floating fish and how to pitch live shrimp, jigs, and flies to them step by step.
Tilefish, Species
How to Catch Tilefish: The Complete Guide
The golden tilefish is a deep-dwelling, burrow-living bottom fish famous for its lobster-like flavor. Here is how to deep drop for these prized deep-water fish.
Tilapia, Species
How to Catch Tilapia: The Complete Guide
Tilapia are hard to fool because they're mostly vegetarian — but during the spawn they turn aggressive and catchable. Here is how to catch wild tilapia on rod, fly, and bow.
Tiger Trout, Species
How to Catch Tiger Trout: The Complete Guide
The tiger trout is a striking, hard-charging hybrid with maze-like markings and a mean streak. Aggressive and fun, here's how to catch one.
Tiger Shark, Species
How to Catch Tiger Shark: The Complete Guide
The tiger shark is one of the largest, most powerful predators an angler can hook from a beach or boat. Here is how to rig, bait, fight, and safely release these giants.
Tiger Musky, Species
How to Catch Tiger Musky: The Complete Guide
The tiger musky is a hard-hitting pike-muskellunge hybrid — fast-growing, aggressive, and sterile. Here's how to catch this trophy predator on bucktails, glide baits, topwater, and live suckers.
Thresher Shark, Species
How to Catch Thresher Shark: The Complete Guide
The thresher shark uses its enormous scythe-like tail to stun prey and often gets tail-hooked, making it a unique and powerful offshore target. Here is how to catch them.
Tench, Species
How to Catch Tench: The Complete Guide
The tench is a beautiful, hard-fighting olive-gold coarse fish beloved by European anglers and found in weedy stillwaters. Here is how to find and catch them.
Tautog, Species
How to Catch Tautog: The Complete Guide to Blackfish
How to catch tautog (blackfish) — the crab-crushing bruiser that lives in the nastiest wrecks, rockpiles, and jetties on the coast. Learn crab baits, the tog rig, jigging, the split-second hookset, and how to winch these bulldogs out of structure.
Tarpon, Species
How to Catch Tarpon: Chasing the Silver King
How to catch tarpon — the acrobatic, chrome-scaled "silver king" and one of the greatest gamefish in the sea. Learn where to find rolling tarpon, and how to fish live bait, fly, and lures, plus how to fight and land one, step by step.
Swordfish, Species
How to Catch Swordfish: The Complete Guide
How to catch swordfish — the broadbill gladiator of the deep, now caught by day in 1,500 feet of water and by night on the drift. Learn daytime deep-dropping, night drifting, rigging squid and strip baits, the weight system, reading the bite, and the fight.
Surfperch, Species
How to Catch Surfperch: The Complete Angler's Guide
Surfperch are scrappy, abundant fish you can catch right off the beach with simple gear. Here's how to read the surf, the baits and rigs that produce, and how to hook into barred, redtail, and other perch from shore.
Striped Marlin, Species
How to Catch Striped Marlin: The Complete Guide
How to catch striped marlin — the acrobatic, sight-fishable billfish of the Pacific and the bait balls of Baja. Learn to spot and cast to tailing fish, pitch live bait, troll lures, tease and switch, fly-fish, and release these spectacular fish.
Striped Bass, Species
How to Catch Striped Bass: The Complete Guide to America's Gamefish
How to catch striped bass — the migratory, hard-fighting icon of the Atlantic surf (and inland reservoirs). Learn where stripers hold, and how to fish live eels, plugs, trolling rigs, jigs, and chunk bait step by step.
Stingray, Species
How to Catch Stingray: The Complete Guide
Stingrays are powerful, dogged fighters that surf and pier anglers hook on bottom baits. Here is how to rig, bait, fight, and — safely — handle and release them.
Steelhead, Species
How to Catch Steelhead: Float Fishing, Swinging Flies, and River Tactics
How to catch steelhead — the sea-run rainbow trout and "fish of a thousand casts." Learn to read holding water, why steelhead strike, and how to fish float rigs, beads, plugs, spoons, and swung flies step by step.
Spotted Sunfish, Species
How to Catch Spotted Sunfish (Stumpknocker): The Complete Guide
The spotted sunfish, or stumpknocker, is a scrappy little Southern panfish that knocks bait off stumps and cover. Here is how to catch these spunky sunfish.
Spotted Seatrout, Species
How to Catch Spotted Seatrout: Grass-Flat Tactics for Specks
How to catch spotted seatrout (speckled trout) — the silver, black-spotted staple of the grass flats. Learn where specks hold, and how to fish the popping cork, soft plastics, topwater, twitchbaits, and live bait step by step.
Spotted Gar, Species
How to Catch Spotted Gar: Rigs, Baits & Tactics
The spotted gar is a beautiful, leopard-spotted, prehistoric predator of weedy backwaters and clear lakes. Here's how to catch them — including the hookless rope-lure trick — plus the best baits, spots, and times.
Spotted Bass, Species
How to Catch Spotted Bass: Deep, Clear-Water Tactics for the Third Black Bass
How to catch spotted bass — the schooling, deep-water black bass of clear reservoirs. Learn to tell them apart, find their offshore schools, and fish the finesse and reaction techniques (drop shot, spybait, underspin, shaky head, jigging spoon) that trigger them.
Splake, Species
How to Catch Splake: The Complete Guide
The splake is a fast-growing brook-and-lake-trout hybrid — a hard-hitting char that's a favorite of ice anglers and spring shore fishermen. Here's how to catch one.
Spinner Shark, Species
How to Catch Spinner Shark: The Complete Guide
The spinner shark is the acrobat of the surf — a fast, hard-running shark famous for leaping and spinning clear of the water. Here is how to catch and release them.
Spanish Mackerel, Species
How to Catch Spanish Mackerel: Fast Lures for the Nearshore Speedster
How to catch Spanish mackerel — the fast, toothy, gold-spotted speedster that blitzes bait along the beaches and piers. Learn where to find schools and how to burn spoons, troll Clark spoons, and rig for their teeth step by step.
Spadefish, Species
How to Catch Spadefish: Wreck, Chum & Clam Tactics
Atlantic spadefish are the hard-fighting silver discs that swarm wrecks, reefs, and light towers in summer — light-tackle brawlers caught on tiny baits over a good chum slick. Learn the rig, chumming, where to find them, and how to fish them.
Sockeye Salmon, Species
How to Catch Sockeye Salmon: The Drift Technique for Red Salmon
How to catch sockeye (red) salmon — the plankton-feeding salmon that requires a specialized approach. Learn the classic Alaska river drift technique, plus fly, trolling, and casting tactics for the best-eating salmon of all.
Snowy Grouper, Species
How to Catch Snowy Grouper: The Complete Guide
The snowy grouper is a deep-water grouper of the outer shelf, caught by deep dropping in hundreds of feet of water. Here is how to find and catch them.
Snook, Species
How to Catch Snook: Ambush Tactics for the Linesider
How to catch snook — the sleek, hard-fighting "linesider" that ambushes bait around mangroves, docks, and bridges. Learn where snook hold, and how to fish live bait, jigs, twitchbaits, topwater, dock lights, and fly step by step.
Smallmouth Buffalo, Species
How to Catch Smallmouth Buffalo: The Complete Guide
The smallmouth buffalo is a huge, powerful, ultra-long-lived native fish that's a serious challenge on rod and reel. Here is how to catch one on bait or by bow.
Smallmouth Bass, Species
How to Catch Smallmouth Bass: Rivers, Lakes, and the Rigs That Work
The complete guide to catching smallmouth bass — how the bronzeback behaves, how to find it in rivers versus lakes, and the finesse and reaction techniques (tube, Ned rig, drop shot, jerkbait, topwater, hair jig) with step-by-step rigging and gear.
Skipjack Tuna, Species
How to Catch Skipjack Tuna: The Complete Guide
How to catch skipjack tuna — the fast, ultra-abundant little tuna that boils across the surface under diving birds. Learn run-and-gun casting, trolling small lures, light-tackle and fly fun, and how to catch and rig them as prime bait for bigger game.
Skipjack Herring, Species
How to Catch Skipjack Herring: Spoons, Jigs & Rigs
The skipjack herring is a fast, silvery, acrobatic little predator that swarms below dams — a blast on light tackle and the premier cut bait for trophy catfish. Here's how to catch them on tiny spoons, jigs, and flies.
Skate, Species
How to Catch Skate: The Complete Guide
Skates are hard-pulling, bottom-dwelling relatives of the rays and a favorite of shore and boat anglers. Here is how to find, rig, bait, fight, and safely release them.
Silver Carp, Species
How to Catch Silver Carp: The Complete Guide
The silver carp is the infamous 'flying carp' — an invasive filter feeder that leaps from the water. Here's how to catch (and even catch airborne) these leaping Asian carp.
Shovelnose Sturgeon, Species
How to Catch Shovelnose Sturgeon: The Complete Guide
The shovelnose sturgeon is the small, common, catchable sturgeon of the big rivers. Here's how to catch them on nightcrawlers and bottom rigs — and how to tell them from protected pallids.
Shortnose Sturgeon, Species
How to Catch Shortnose Sturgeon (and Why You Legally Can't)
The shortnose sturgeon is a small, ancient, federally endangered fish you cannot legally target. Here's what to know — and what to do if you hook one by accident.
Shortnose Gar, Species
How to Catch Shortnose Gar: Rigs, Baits & Tactics
The shortnose gar is a hardy, adaptable, prehistoric predator of big rivers and their backwaters. Here's how to catch them — including the hookless rope-lure trick — plus the best baits, spots, and times.
Shoal Bass, Species
How to Catch Shoal Bass: The Complete Guide
The shoal bass is a hard-fighting river native of the Deep South — a rocky-shoal specialist that pulls like a freight train. Here's how to catch one.
Sheepshead, Species
How to Catch Sheepshead: Beating the Bait-Stealing Convict Fish
How to catch sheepshead — the black-barred "convict fish" with human-like teeth and a maddening, subtle bite. Learn where they hold on structure, how to detect their bait-stealing nibble, and how to fish crabs, shrimp, and jigs step by step.
Shadow Bass, Species
How to Catch Shadow Bass: The Complete Guide
The shadow bass is a mottled, red-eyed rock bass of clear Southern streams that ambushes prey from cover. Here is how to catch these scrappy stream fish.
Scup, Species
How to Catch Scup (Porgy): A Northeast Bottom-Fishing Guide
Scup — porgies — are the Northeast's most reliable bottom fish: easy to find, willing to bite, and superb on the plate. Learn the high-low rig, the best baits, jigging tactics, and how to find the biggest 'humpback' scup.
Scamp Grouper, Species
How to Catch Scamp Grouper: The Complete Guide
The scamp grouper is a slender, spotted reef grouper prized as the best-eating grouper of them all. Here is how to find and catch these deep-structure fish.
Saugeye, Species
How to Catch Saugeye: The Complete Guide
The saugeye is a walleye-sauger hybrid built for muddy reservoirs and spillways — fast-growing, aggressive, and delicious. Here's how to catch them.
Sauger, Species
How to Catch Sauger: The Complete Guide
The sauger is the walleye's river-running cousin — a current-loving, spotted-finned gamefish that stacks up below dams and eats like a champ. Here's how.
Sandbar Shark, Species
How to Catch Sandbar Shark: The Complete Guide
The sandbar shark is a thick, hard-pulling coastal shark and a favorite of surf and boat anglers. Here is how to find, rig, bait, fight, and safely release them.
Sailfish, Species
How to Catch Sailfish: The Complete Billfish Guide
How to catch sailfish — the acrobatic, lit-up billfish that tail-walks across the surface. Learn dredge and teaser fishing, kite fishing with live bait, trolling ballyhoo, the circle-hook drop-back, and how to release these prized fish healthy.
Sacramento Perch, Species
How to Catch Sacramento Perch: The Complete Guide
The Sacramento perch is California's only native sunfish — a hard-fighting, great-eating panfish now best found in a handful of stocked waters. Here is how to catch them.
Roosterfish, Species
How to Catch Roosterfish: The Complete Guide
With its unmistakable dorsal comb and blistering runs, the roosterfish is the crown jewel of the eastern Pacific surf. Here's how to catch one.
Rockfish, Species
How to Catch Rockfish: The Complete Guide
Rockfish are the bread and butter of West Coast bottom fishing — dozens of species, easy to catch, and superb eating. Here's how to load up on them.
Rock Bass, Species
How to Catch Rock Bass: The Complete Guide
The rock bass is a scrappy, red-eyed panfish that ambushes from rocky cover and bites almost anything. Here's how to catch these hard-fighting 'goggle-eyes.'
Rio Grande Cichlid, Species
How to Catch Rio Grande Cichlid: The Complete Guide
The Rio Grande cichlid — aka Texas cichlid or Rio Grande perch — is a hard-fighting, jewel-spotted native cichlid and a favorite Texas fly-rod target. Here is how to catch them.
Redfish, Species
How to Catch Redfish: Sight-Fishing, Corks, and Inshore Tactics
How to catch redfish (red drum) — the copper-bronze king of the inshore flats and marshes. Learn to find tailing reds, and how to fish the popping cork, gold spoon, soft plastics, topwater, and fly step by step.
Redeye Bass, Species
How to Catch Redeye Bass: The Complete Guide
The redeye bass is a gorgeous, hard-fighting stream black bass of the Southern Appalachians that hammers topwater and flies. Here is how to catch them.
Redear Sunfish, Species
How to Catch Redear Sunfish (Shellcracker): The Complete Guide
The redear sunfish, or shellcracker, is the biggest, hardest-fighting bream of them all — a snail-crushing bottom feeder. Here's how to catch trophy redear on the bottom.
Redbreast Sunfish, Species
How to Catch Redbreast Sunfish: The Complete Guide
The redbreast sunfish is a gorgeous, hard-fighting river panfish that hammers small lures, flies, and crickets. Here is how to catch these colorful stream jewels.
Red Snapper, Species
How to Catch Red Snapper: The Complete Guide
How to catch red snapper — the iconic, hard-pulling red reef fish of the Gulf and South Atlantic. Learn bottom rigs, the best baits, vertical jigging, chumming them up, finding the right structure, and how to release fish with a descending device.
Red Porgy, Species
How to Catch Red Porgy: The Complete Guide
The red porgy is a rose-colored reef bottom fish, sometimes called pink snapper, that is a staple of hard-bottom fishing and excellent eating. Here is how to catch them.
Red Hind, Species
How to Catch Red Hind: Caribbean Reef Grouper Tactics
Red hind are the handsome, red-spotted little groupers that fill Caribbean reefs — willing biters on cut bait and jigs, and among the best-eating fish on the reef. Learn the rigs, baits, where they hold, and the rules that protect their spawning grounds.
Red Grouper, Species
How to Catch Red Grouper: The Complete Guide
How to catch red grouper — the aggressive, hard-pulling bottom bruiser of Gulf and Atlantic reefs and hard bottom. Learn heavy bottom fishing, the best baits, how to pull them out of the hole, trolling, jigging, and releasing deep-caught fish alive.
Rainbow Trout, Species
How to Catch Rainbow Trout: Bait, Spinners, and Fly Tactics for Lakes and Streams
How to catch rainbow trout — the most popular and widely stocked trout in America. Learn where they live in stillwaters and streams, and how to fish every core method (PowerBait, bobber, spinners, spoons, drift fishing, fly, trolling) with step-by-step rigging.
Queen Snapper, Species
How to Catch Queen Snapper: Deep-Drop Fishing Guide
Queen snapper are the stunning deep-water snappers of the tropical Atlantic — bright red, big-eyed fish that live hundreds of feet down and rank among the best eating in the sea. Learn deep dropping, the rigs, jigging, finding them, and how to fish them right.
Pumpkinseed, Species
How to Catch Pumpkinseed Sunfish: The Complete Guide
The pumpkinseed is one of the prettiest, most willing panfish there is — a perfect fish for kids. Here's how to catch them on worms, tiny jigs, flies, and through the ice.
Porbeagle Shark, Species
How to Catch Porbeagle Shark: The Complete Guide
The porbeagle is a powerful, cold-water mackerel shark and a prized big-game target off the UK, Canada, and the North Atlantic. Here is how to hook, fight, and release them.
Pompano, Species
How to Catch Pompano: Surf-Fishing the Beach's Golden Prize
How to catch pompano — the silver-and-gold surf jewel that is among the best-eating fish in the sea. Learn to read the beach and how to fish the pompano rig with sand fleas, plus jigs, from the surf and piers step by step.
Pollock, Species
How to Catch Pollock: The Complete Angler's Guide
Walleye (Alaska) pollock are abundant, schooling gadids that hammer jigs and sabikis in the North Pacific. Here's how to find them, the light jigging tactics that work, and how to turn a fast bite into a great meal.
Pink Salmon, Species
How to Catch Pink Salmon: The Complete Guide
The pink salmon is the smallest, most abundant Pacific salmon — and when the 'humpies' run by the millions, it's some of the most fun, fast fishing there is.
Permit, Species
How to Catch Permit: Chasing the Holy Grail of the Flats
How to catch permit — the maddening, wary "holy grail" of flats fishing and the ultimate fly-rod challenge. Learn where permit tail, why they are so hard, and how to fish crab flies, live crabs, and the wrecks step by step.
Peacock Bass, Species
How to Catch Peacock Bass: Topwater and Tactics for the Tropical Brawler
How to catch peacock bass — the explosive, colorful tropical predator (and it is not even a bass). Learn where to find them in Florida and the Amazon, and how to fish topwater, jerkbaits, live bait, jigs, and fly step by step.
Papio, Species
How to Catch Papio: A Hawaii Shore-Fishing Guide
Papio are the hard-fighting juvenile trevally that patrol Hawaii's shorelines. Learn whipping, dunking, and plugging tactics, how to tell omilu from white ulua, and the rules that keep the fishery healthy.
Pallid Sturgeon, Species
How to Catch Pallid Sturgeon (and Why You Legally Can't)
The pallid sturgeon is a federally endangered living fossil of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Here is how to identify one, why you can't target or keep it, and how to release it safely if you hook one by accident.
Paddlefish, Species
How to Catch Paddlefish: Snagging the River Giant
The paddlefish (spoonbill) is a huge, prehistoric plankton-eater you can't catch on bait — you snag them. Here's how paddlefish snagging works, the gear and rigs, the best rivers and seasons, and how to clean this caviar-famous fish.
Pacific Halibut, Species
How to Catch Pacific Halibut: The Complete Guide
How to catch Pacific halibut — the giant, delicious flatfish of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, and one of the best fights in cold water. Learn deep bottom fishing, the best baits, halibut rigs, jigging, finding fish, and how to land a 'barn door' safely.
Pacific Cod, Species
How to Catch Pacific Cod: The Complete Angler's Guide
Pacific cod — grey cod, true cod, P-cod — are abundant, hard-pulling bottomfish and some of the best table fare in the North Pacific. Here's how to find them, the jigs and rigs that work, and how to fill the box.
Oscar, Species
How to Catch Oscar: The Complete Guide
The oscar is a colorful, aggressive Amazon cichlid that's become a beloved invasive gamefish in Florida. Here is how to catch these hard-hitting exotics.
Opah, Species
How to Catch Opah: The Complete Angler's Guide to Moonfish
Opah — the brilliant red-finned moonfish — are one of the ocean's rarest and most prized catches. Here's the honest truth about how they're caught, the deep-drop techniques that produce, and why every opah is a trophy.
Nurse Shark, Species
How to Catch Nurse Shark: The Complete Guide
The nurse shark is a bottom-hugging bruiser that anglers hook from bridges, docks, and reefs. Here is how to find, rig, bait, fight, and safely release them.
Northern Snakehead, Species
How to Catch Northern Snakehead: The Complete Guide
The northern snakehead is an invasive, air-breathing predator that explodes on topwater frogs in thick cover. Here is how to catch them — and why you must not release them.
Northern Pike, Species
How to Catch Northern Pike: Spoons, Baits, and Tactics for the Water Wolf
How to catch northern pike — the toothy, aggressive ambush predator of northern waters. Learn where pike hide, why you must use a leader, and how to fish spoons, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, live and dead bait, and tip-ups step by step.
Nassau Grouper, Species
How to Catch Nassau Grouper: The Complete Guide
The Nassau grouper is an iconic Caribbean reef fish — and a protected, catch-and-release species. Here is how to catch, identify, and safely release them.
Mutton Snapper, Species
How to Catch Mutton Snapper: The Complete Guide
How to catch mutton snapper — the wary, hard-fighting trophy snapper that lives on the reef and cruises the flats like a permit. Learn reef live-baiting, flats sight-fishing, jigging, chumming, crab baits, and the light-leader finesse these smart fish demand.
Muskellunge, Species
How to Catch Muskie: Tactics for the Fish of 10,000 Casts
How to catch muskellunge — the giant apex predator of freshwater and "fish of 10,000 casts." Learn the heavy tackle you need, where muskies live, and how to fish bucktails, topwater, glide baits, rubber, and the all-important figure-eight.
Mountain Whitefish, Species
How to Catch Mountain Whitefish: Nymphs, Bait & Tactics
The mountain whitefish is a scrappy, abundant native of Western trout rivers that eats nymphs and bait with abandon — and keeps the rod bent all winter. Here's how to catch them with nymph rigs, bait, and floats, plus the best spots.
Mooneye, Species
How to Catch Mooneye: The Complete Guide
The mooneye is a silvery, big-eyed river fish that eagerly takes flies and small lures — an underrated light-tackle and fly-rod target. Here is how to catch them.
Mayan Cichlid, Species
How to Catch Mayan Cichlid: The Complete Guide
The Mayan cichlid is a colorful, aggressive Central American cichlid that's now a popular invasive gamefish in South Florida. Here is how to catch them.
Manta Ray, Species
How to Catch a Manta Ray (And Why You Shouldn't Try)
Everything anglers ask about catching manta rays — why these protected filter-feeders aren't a rod-and-reel target, how to identify them, what to do if you accidentally foul-hook one, and the legal, ethical way to get up close.
Mangrove Snapper, Species
How to Catch Mangrove Snapper: The Complete Guide
How to catch mangrove snapper (gray snapper) — the wary, structure-loving snapper found from inshore docks and mangroves to offshore reefs and wrecks. Learn inshore and offshore tactics, light leaders, free-lining, the best baits, and night fishing.
Mako Shark, Species
How to Catch Mako Shark: The Complete Guide
The shortfin mako is the fastest shark in the sea and a spectacular jumping gamefish. Here is how to chum, hook, fight, and responsibly handle these offshore rockets.
Mahi-Mahi, Species
How to Catch Mahi-Mahi: The Complete Dolphinfish Guide
How to catch mahi-mahi (dolphinfish, dorado) — the fastest, most colorful, most acrobatic fish in the blue water. Learn to run weed lines and frigate birds, troll ballyhoo, pitch baits to keep a school at the boat, cast to schoolies, and fly-fish for dolphin.
Longnose Gar, Species
How to Catch Longnose Gar: Rigs, Baits & Techniques
Longnose gar are prehistoric, needle-jawed predators that fight like crazy and haunt slow rivers and lakes across America. Here's how to hook their bony beaks — including the famous no-hook rope lure — plus the best baits, spots, and times.
Longear Sunfish, Species
How to Catch Longear Sunfish: The Complete Guide
The longear sunfish may be the most beautiful freshwater fish in North America — an electric-colored little jewel of clear creeks. Here's how to catch them.
Lingcod, Species
How to Catch Lingcod: The Complete Guide
How to catch lingcod — the voracious, big-mouthed ambush predator of West Coast rocky reefs and pinnacles. Learn jigging swimbaits and metal jigs, live and dead bait, the classic 'grab your rockfish' trick, finding rocky structure, and pulling lings off the rocks.
Lesser Amberjack, Species
How to Catch Lesser Amberjack: The Complete Guide
The lesser amberjack is the smallest and deepest-dwelling of the Atlantic amberjacks, caught over deep reefs and wrecks. Here is how to find and catch them.
Leopard Shark, Species
How to Catch Leopard Shark: The Complete Angler's Guide
Leopard sharks are handsome, hard-pulling, and abundant in West Coast bays and surf — a perfect shore-fishing shark. Here's how to find them, the baits and rigs that work, and how to land and release one.
Lemon Shark, Species
How to Catch Lemon Shark: The Complete Guide
The lemon shark is one of the most accessible big sharks in the inshore game, prowling flats, beaches, and channels. Here is how to rig, bait, fight, and safely release them.
Largemouth Bass, Species
How to Catch Largemouth Bass: Techniques, Rigs, and Gear
A complete guide to catching largemouth bass — what they are, how they behave through the seasons, where to find them, and the core techniques (Texas rig, jig, wacky/Ned, topwater, moving baits, drop shot) with step-by-step rigging and the gear to get started.
Lane Snapper, Species
How to Catch Lane Snapper: The Complete Guide
The lane snapper is a colorful, abundant, delicious little snapper that's easy to catch on reefs and hard bottom. Here is how to catch these tasty panfish of the reef.
Lake Whitefish, Species
How to Catch Lake Whitefish: Jigging & Ice Fishing
The lake whitefish is a hard-fighting, delicious deep-water fish that's become an ice-fishing and jigging favorite across the north. Here's how to catch them with spoons and jigs, through the ice and in open water, plus the best spots.
Lake Trout, Species
How to Catch Lake Trout: Jigging, Trolling, and the Depth Game
How to catch lake trout — the big, deep-water char of cold northern lakes. Learn how they follow temperature through the seasons and how to fish every core technique (vertical jigging, trolling, lead core, spring casting, ice fishing) with step-by-step instruction.
Lake Sturgeon, Species
How to Catch Lake Sturgeon: The Complete Guide
The lake sturgeon is a living dinosaur — a giant, ancient, hard-fighting bottom feeder. Here's how to catch and safely release these prehistoric freshwater giants.
Ladyfish, Species
How to Catch Ladyfish: The Complete Guide
The ladyfish is a wild, acrobatic inshore speedster that jumps and runs like crazy on light tackle. Here is how to catch these hard-fighting silver rockets.
Kokanee Salmon, Species
How to Catch Kokanee Salmon: The Complete Guide
The kokanee is a landlocked sockeye — a small, scrappy, brilliant-red lake salmon and one of the best-eating freshwater fish there is. Here's how to catch them.
King Mackerel, Species
How to Catch King Mackerel: Slow-Trolling for Smoker Kings
How to catch king mackerel — the fast, toothy "smoker" that skyrockets on a live bait and screams off a hundred yards of line. Learn where kings roam and how to slow-troll live bait, pull dead bait, and rig the all-important stinger step by step.
Jack Crevalle, Species
How to Catch Jack Crevalle: Bulldog Battles on Reaction Lures
How to catch jack crevalle — the tireless, hard-pulling bulldog of the inshore world that blitzes bait and never quits. Learn where to find schools of jacks and how to fish topwater, fast lures, jigs, and fly step by step.
Inconnu, Species
How to Catch Inconnu (Sheefish): The Complete Guide
The inconnu, or sheefish, is the 'tarpon of the North' — a giant, hard-fighting predatory whitefish of Alaska and the Arctic. Here is how to find and catch one.
Hybrid Striped Bass, Species
How to Catch Hybrid Striped Bass (Wiper): The Complete Guide
The wiper is a bulldog — a white bass–striper cross that fights harder than either parent and hunts shad in relentless schools. Here's how to catch them.
Hogfish, Species
How to Catch Hogfish: The Complete Guide
How to catch hogfish (hog snapper) — the wary, pig-snouted reef fish widely considered the best-eating fish in the sea. Learn the light-tackle hook-and-line game, small hooks and shrimp, finding hard bottom, chumming, and spearfishing these finicky reef targets.
Hickory Shad, Species
How to Catch Hickory Shad: Darts, Spoons & Tactics
The hickory shad is a scrappy, acrobatic member of the herring family that runs up East Coast rivers each spring and slams small lures. Here's how to catch them with shad darts, spoons, and flies, plus the best rivers and timing.
Hammerhead Shark, Species
How to Catch Hammerhead Shark: The Complete Guide
The great hammerhead is a giant, powerful shark and one of the ultimate land-based and inshore shark trophies. Here is how to catch and safely release them.
Haddock, Species
How to Catch Haddock: Rigs, Baits & Bottom Tactics
Haddock are the North Atlantic's most rewarding bottom fish for the table — abundant on the offshore banks and superb eating. Learn the clam rig, sand-eel jigging, where to find them, and how to fillet your catch.
Guadalupe Bass, Species
How to Catch Guadalupe Bass: The Complete Guide
The Guadalupe bass is the state fish of Texas — a scrappy, current-loving black bass found only in Hill Country rivers. Here's how to catch one.
Greenling, Species
How to Catch Greenling: The Complete Angler's Guide
Kelp greenling are colorful, hard-biting little reef fish that are among the most accessible and delicious catches on the Pacific coast. Here's how to find them, the baits and lures that work, and how to fish for them from shore.
Green Sunfish, Species
How to Catch Green Sunfish: The Complete Guide
The green sunfish is a bold, big-mouthed panfish that lives everywhere and bites anything. Here's how to catch these scrappy little bruisers on worms, jigs, and flies.
Greater Amberjack, Species
How to Catch Greater Amberjack: The Complete Guide
How to catch greater amberjack — the notorious 'reef donkey,' one of the hardest-pulling fish in the ocean. Learn to drop live baits and speed jigs to wrecks and reefs, work topwaters, chum them up, and survive the brutal, arm-burning fight.
Gray Triggerfish, Species
How to Catch Gray Triggerfish: The Complete Guide
The gray triggerfish is a bait-stealing reef fish with a small mouth, powerful teeth, and some of the best flesh in the ocean. Here is how to outsmart and catch them.
Grass Carp, Species
How to Catch Grass Carp: The Complete Guide
The grass carp is a giant, wary, plant-eating carp that tests the best anglers. Here's how to catch these powerful vegetarians on bread, vegetation baits, and the fly.
Goliath Grouper, Species
How to Catch Goliath Grouper: The Complete Guide
The goliath grouper is a colossal, protected reef giant that can top 500 pounds and pulls like a truck. Here is how to catch (and release) these massive fish.
Goldeye, Species
How to Catch Goldeye: The Complete Guide
The goldeye is a scrappy, golden-eyed river fish that hammers flies and small lures — a light-tackle favorite of the northern plains and famous smoked. Here is how to catch them.
Golden Trout, Species
How to Catch Golden Trout: The Complete Guide
The golden trout is the most beautiful trout in America — a jewel of the high alpine that rewards those willing to hike for it. Here's how to catch one.
Gizzard Shad, Species
How to Catch Gizzard Shad (the Ultimate Catfish Bait)
The gizzard shad is the most important baitfish in America's rivers and lakes — the go-to live and cut bait for trophy catfish and stripers. Here's how to catch them with a cast net or sabiki, keep them alive, and rig them.
Gila Trout, Species
How to Catch Gila Trout: The Complete Guide
The Gila trout is a rare golden native of the Southwest's wildest country — a conservation comeback story you can now fish for. Here's how.
Giant Trevally, Species
How to Catch Giant Trevally (GT): The Complete Guide
The giant trevally is the reef's apex thug — a brutal, tackle-destroying predator that inhales poppers and sprints for the coral. Here's how to land one.
Gag Grouper, Species
How to Catch Gag Grouper: The Complete Guide
How to catch gag grouper — arguably the hardest-pulling grouper, a wreck-and-ledge bruiser that crushes live baits and bolts for structure. Learn live-baiting, the nearshore fall run, trolling, jigging, heavy rigs, and how to winch gags out of the rocks.
Freshwater Drum, Species
How to Catch Freshwater Drum: Rigs, Baits & Tactics
The freshwater drum — aka sheepshead, gaspergou, or grunter — is a hard-pulling, widely available river and lake fish that hammers bottom baits and jigs. Here's how to catch them, the best rigs and baits, spots, and how to eat them.
Flounder, Species
How to Catch Flounder: Bottom Tactics for the Flatfish Ambusher
How to catch flounder — the camouflaged flatfish that ambushes bait from the bottom. Learn where flounder lie in wait, the all-important slow hookset, and how to fish jigs, live bait, drift, and the fall run step by step.
Florida Gar, Species
How to Catch Florida Gar: Rigs, Baits & Tactics
The Florida gar is a beautiful, leopard-spotted, prehistoric predator that fills the canals and lakes of Florida. Here's how to catch them — including the hookless rope-lure trick — plus the best baits, spots, and times.
Flier, Species
How to Catch Flier: The Complete Guide
The flier is a small, disk-shaped Southern swamp sunfish that's a blast on tiny tackle. Here is how to catch these scrappy blackwater panfish.
Flathead Catfish, Species
How to Catch Flathead Catfish: The Live-Bait Predator
How to catch flathead catfish — the big, solitary predator of the catfish world that wants live bait, not stink bait. Learn where flatheads lair, why lively bait is everything, and how to fish cover, floats, and set lines step by step.
False Albacore, Species
How to Catch False Albacore: The Complete Guide
The false albacore, or little tunny, is a blazing-fast light-tackle rocket that peels off drag like nothing else inshore. Here is how to catch these speedsters.
Fallfish, Species
How to Catch Fallfish: The Complete Guide
The fallfish is the largest native minnow in eastern North America — an aggressive, hard-fighting stream fish sometimes called 'the poor man's tarpon.' Here is how to catch them.
Dusky Shark, Species
How to Catch Dusky Shark: The Complete Guide
The dusky shark is a huge, powerful, and heavily protected requiem shark. Here is how to identify, hook, fight, and — critically — safely release these giants.
Dolly Varden, Species
How to Catch Dolly Varden: The Complete Guide
Dolly Varden are beautiful, aggressive char of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska that gorge on salmon eggs and flesh. Here is how to find and catch them.
Cutthroat Trout, Species
How to Catch Cutthroat Trout: Dry Flies, Spinners, and the Native Western Trout
How to catch cutthroat trout — the eager, native trout of the American West. Learn the subspecies and where they live, why they rise so willingly to a dry fly, and how to fish dries, nymphs, streamers, spinners, and high lakes step by step.
Cubera Snapper, Species
How to Catch Cubera Snapper: The Complete Guide
The cubera snapper is the giant of the Atlantic snappers, a powerful reef bruiser that can top 100 pounds. Here is how to catch these massive, hard-pulling fish.
Crappie, Species
How to Catch Crappie: Jigs, Minnows, and the Slab Calendar
How to catch crappie — America's favorite panfish and best-eating freshwater fish. Learn the black-vs-white difference, the seasonal crappie calendar, and how to fish jigs, minnows, spider rigs, dock shooting, and brush piles step by step.
Common Carp, Species
How to Catch Common Carp: Hair Rigs, Baits, and Big-Fish Tactics
How to catch common carp — the big, strong, surprisingly wary fish that anchors the world's most popular specialist angling scene. Learn the hair rig, the best baits, and how to fish method feeders, float, and fly for carp step by step.
Coho Salmon, Species
How to Catch Coho Salmon: Twitching Jigs, Spinners, and Silver Tactics
How to catch coho (silver) salmon — the acrobatic, aggressive Pacific salmon that will chase and crush a lure. Learn to twitch jigs, cast spinners and spoons, float fish, and troll for silvers step by step.
Cobia, Species
How to Catch Cobia: Sight-Fishing the Curious Brown Bruiser
How to catch cobia — the curious, hard-fighting "ling" that cruises the surface and follows rays, buoys, and your boat. Learn to spot and sight-cast to cobia, and how to fish the bucktail jig, live eels, and crabs step by step.
Cisco, Species
How to Catch Cisco (Tullibee): The Complete Guide
Cisco — also called tullibee or lake herring — are silvery, deep-water schoolers prized by ice anglers and coveted as lake trout bait. Here is how to find and catch them.
Chum Salmon, Species
How to Catch Chum Salmon: The Complete Guide
The chum salmon is the underrated bruiser of the Pacific — a big, dogged fighter with fierce teeth and calico stripes that hammers chartreuse and pink. Here's how.
Chub, Species
How to Catch Chub: The Complete Guide
Chub — especially the creek chub — are scrappy, willing little stream fish that bite almost anything and make top-tier bait for bass, pike, and catfish. Here is how to catch them.
Chinook Salmon, Species
How to Catch Chinook Salmon: Trolling, Drift, and River Tactics for Kings
How to catch chinook (king) salmon — the largest Pacific salmon, caught in the ocean, the Great Lakes, and the rivers. Learn to troll with downriggers, mooch, and fish roe, plugs, spinners, and jigs for kings step by step.
Channel Catfish, Species
How to Catch Channel Catfish: Baits, Rigs, and Bottom-Fishing Tactics
How to catch channel catfish — the most popular and widespread catfish in North America. Learn how their sense of smell works, the best baits, and how to fish bottom rigs, dip baits, cut bait, drift, and float rigs step by step.
Chain Pickerel, Species
How to Catch Chain Pickerel: The Complete Guide
The chain pickerel is a hard-striking, toothy ambush predator that bites all winter. Here's how to catch them on spinnerbaits, spoons, jerkbaits, topwater, and live shiners.
Cero Mackerel, Species
How to Catch Cero Mackerel: Reef, Jig & Live-Bait Tactics
Cero mackerel are South Florida and the Caribbean's prettiest, best-eating mackerel — fast patch-reef predators caught on jigs, spoons, and live bait. Learn where they hold, the rigs and lures that fool them, and how to tell a cero from a Spanish.
California Sheephead, Species
How to Catch California Sheephead: The Complete Angler's Guide
California sheephead are hard-fighting, structure-loving reef fish and superb eating. Here's how to find them, the baits and rigs that beat their bait-stealing habits, and how to land them out of the rocks.
California Halibut, Species
How to Catch California Halibut: The Complete Guide
How to catch California halibut — the ambush flatfish of West Coast bays, beaches, and nearshore sand, and a superb light-tackle and table target. Learn drift-fishing live bait, the trap rig, swimbaits, trolling, and surf fishing for these sandy-bottom flatties.
California Corbina, Species
How to Catch California Corbina: The Complete Angler's Guide
California corbina are the wary, hard-fighting prize of the SoCal surf — sight-fishable in inches of water and famously tricky to fool. Here's how to find them, the sand-crab and lure tactics that work, and how to hook one.
California Barracuda, Species
How to Catch California Barracuda: The Complete Angler's Guide
California (Pacific) barracuda are fast, toothy, aggressive light-tackle gamefish that hammer surface irons and live bait. Here's how to find them, the lures and rigs that work, and how to handle those teeth.
Calico Bass, Species
How to Catch Calico Bass (Kelp Bass): The Complete Guide
The calico bass is the pit bull of the California kelp — hard-charging, structure-loving, and endlessly fun. Here's how to catch them consistently.
Cabezon, Species
How to Catch Cabezon: The Complete Angler's Guide
Cabezon are big, hard-hitting scaleless sculpins that ambush from West Coast rocks and kelp — and they're outstanding eating. Here's how to find them, the baits and lures that work, and how to land one from boat or shore.
Burbot, Species
How to Catch Burbot: The Complete Guide
The burbot — aka eelpout or ling — is the only freshwater cod, a cold-water, night-feeding predator best caught jigging through the ice. Here is how to catch them.
Bullhead Catfish, Species
How to Catch Bullhead Catfish: The Complete Guide
The bullhead is the ultimate beginner's catfish — abundant, aggressive, and easy to catch on simple bait. Here's how to catch them on worms, stink bait, and bottom rigs.
Bull Trout, Species
How to Catch Bull Trout: The Complete Guide
The bull trout is a cold-water apex predator and a threatened native char — a bucket-list fish that demands big streamers and strict conservation. Here's how.
Bull Shark, Species
How to Catch Bull Shark: The Complete Guide
The bull shark is a powerful, aggressive inshore shark that even pushes into rivers and estuaries. Here is how to catch these heavy-bodied brawlers safely.
Brown Trout, Species
How to Catch Brown Trout: Streamers, Night Tactics, and the Pursuit of Big Fish
How to catch brown trout — the wariest, most predatory trout in the water. Learn where big browns hide, why they feed after dark, and how to fish streamers, spinners, jerkbaits, nymphs, and the night bite with step-by-step technique.
Brook Trout, Species
How to Catch Brook Trout: Small-Stream Tactics for America's Native Char
How to catch brook trout — the eager, jewel-colored native char of cold headwater streams and high-country ponds. Learn where they live, the stealthy hike-and-cast approach, and how to fish worms, spinners, dry flies, and tenkara step by step.
Bowfin, Species
How to Catch Bowfin: Rigs, Baits & Tactics
The bowfin is a hard-fighting, prehistoric 'living fossil' that hammers baits and lures in weedy backwaters and swamps. Here's how to catch these mudfish — the best cut baits, lures, rigs, and spots, plus how to handle their teeth.
Bonefish, Species
How to Catch Bonefish: Sight-Fishing the Gray Ghost of the Flats
How to catch bonefish — the chrome "gray ghost" of the tropical flats and one of the great sight-fishing gamefish. Learn to spot tailing fish and how to fish the fly, spin tackle, and shrimp for these blistering-fast speedsters step by step.
Bluegill, Species
How to Catch Bluegill: The Easiest Fish to Catch (and How to Catch Big Ones)
How to catch bluegill — the panfish that made most of us anglers. Learn where they live, the simple worm-and-bobber basics, and the techniques (small jigs, poppers, beetle spins) that catch big "bull" bluegill, step by step.
Bluefish, Species
How to Catch Bluefish: Battling the Toothy Choppers
How to catch bluefish — the ferocious, razor-toothed "chopper" that blitzes bait in a frenzy and fights like crazy. Learn where to find blitzing blues and how to fish metal, plugs, topwater, and cut bait (with the right leader) step by step.
Bluefin Tuna, Species
How to Catch Bluefin Tuna: The Complete Guide
How to catch bluefin tuna — the giant, cold-water powerhouse and the hardest-pulling fish in the sea. Learn trolling, deep jigging, topwater popping, chunking and bait, kite fishing, and how to fight a giant bluefin to the boat.
Blue Tilapia, Species
How to Catch Blue Tilapia: The Complete Guide
The blue tilapia is a hardy, hard-fighting invasive cichlid that's notoriously tough on hook and line. Here is how to catch these tricky, tasty fish.
Blue Shark, Species
How to Catch Blue Shark: The Complete Guide
The blue shark is a beautiful, abundant offshore shark and a superb light-tackle gamefish caught by drifting and chumming. Here is how to hook, fight, and release them.
Blue Marlin, Species
How to Catch Blue Marlin: The Complete Big-Game Guide
How to catch blue marlin — the ultimate big-game trophy, a half-ton apex predator of the open ocean. Learn to set a trolling lure spread, choose lure heads, run dredges and teasers, live-bait, fight from the chair, and tag and release these giants.
Blue Catfish, Species
How to Catch Blue Catfish: Drift, Anchor, and Trophy Tactics
How to catch blue catfish — the largest catfish in North America and the ultimate freshwater trophy. Learn how blues follow the shad, why fresh cut bait rules, and how to drift, anchor, suspend-drift, and bump for giants step by step.
Blacktip Shark, Species
How to Catch Blacktip Shark: The Complete Guide
The blacktip shark is a fast, acrobatic inshore shark famous for spinning leaps and blistering runs. Here is how to catch them from the surf and the boat.
Blackfin Tuna, Species
How to Catch Blackfin Tuna: The Complete Guide
How to catch blackfin tuna — the scrappy, abundant little tuna that pulls way above its weight on light tackle. Learn chumming and live bait, vertical jigging, trolling small lures, kite fishing, casting, and night fishing for these tasty warm-water tuna.
Black Sea Bass, Species
How to Catch Black Sea Bass: The Complete Guide
How to catch black sea bass — the hard-biting, delicious bottom fish that swarms Northeast and Mid-Atlantic wrecks, reefs, and rockpiles. Learn the high-low rig, jigging, the best baits, how to find structure, and how to target the big 'knothead' humpbacks.
Black Grouper, Species
How to Catch Black Grouper: The Complete Guide
How to catch black grouper — the king of the reef, the biggest and most prized of the common groupers, a wary, powerful bruiser of tropical reefs and wrecks. Learn live-baiting, trolling, jigging, cut bait, heavy tackle, and how to winch these trophies up.
Black Drum, Species
How to Catch Black Drum: From Puppy Drum to Bulls
How to catch black drum — the whiskered, crustacean-crushing cousin of the redfish, from tasty "puppy drum" to giant bulls. Learn where they feed, and how to fish shrimp, crab, and bottom rigs step by step.
Black Crappie, Species
How to Catch Black Crappie: The Complete Guide
The black crappie is a schooling panfish prized for fast action and superb eating. Here's how to catch them on jigs, minnows, spider rigs, and around brush and docks.
Bigmouth Buffalo, Species
How to Catch Bigmouth Buffalo: The Complete Guide
The bigmouth buffalo is a giant, filter-feeding native sucker and one of the longest-lived fish on Earth. Here is how to catch one on bait or by bow.
Bighead Carp, Species
How to Catch Bighead Carp: The Complete Guide
The bighead carp is a giant, invasive, plankton-eating Asian carp that's notoriously hard to hook. Here's how to catch them with paste methods, snagging, bowfishing, and the fly.
Bigeye Tuna, Species
How to Catch Bigeye Tuna: The Complete Guide
How to catch bigeye tuna — the deep-dwelling, big-eyed canyon bruiser prized above almost all others for sashimi. Learn dawn-patrol trolling, deep jigging by day, night chunking, finding fish in the canyons, and how to fight these powerful tuna.
Barracuda, Species
How to Catch Barracuda: The Complete Guide
How to catch great barracuda — the toothy, lightning-fast ambush predator that crushes tube lures and topwaters and can be sight-fished on the flats. Learn tube lures, flats sight-fishing, topwater, wire leaders, live bait, and how to handle these toothy speedsters.
Atlantic Sturgeon, Species
How to Catch Atlantic Sturgeon (and Why You Legally Can't)
The Atlantic sturgeon is a giant, ancient, federally endangered fish that you cannot legally target. Here's what you need to know — and what to do if you hook one by accident.
Atlantic Salmon, Species
How to Catch Atlantic Salmon: Fly Fishing for the King of Gamefish
How to catch Atlantic salmon — the leaping "king of gamefish" and the crown jewel of fly fishing. Learn why they strike from instinct, and how to fish the wet-fly swing, dry flies, sunk lines, and more for salar step by step.
Atlantic Mackerel, Species
How to Catch Atlantic Mackerel: Sabikis, Feathers & Spinning
Atlantic mackerel are the fast, hard-fighting schooling fish that light up piers and boats in summer — easy to catch on strings of hooks, superb eating, and the best bait in the sea. Learn sabikis, feathers, spinning, and how to find the shoals.
Atlantic Cod, Species
How to Catch Atlantic Cod: Jigs, Bait & Wreck Tactics
Atlantic cod are the iconic bottom fish of the North Atlantic — powerful, delicious, and steeped in history. Learn diamond-jig and teaser tactics, the best baits, how to find them on structure, and the conservation rules that matter.
Atlantic Bonito, Species
How to Catch Atlantic Bonito: The Complete Guide
The Atlantic bonito is a fast, hard-hitting little tuna that fights like an albie but eats like a dream. Here is how to catch these prized speedsters.
Arctic Grayling, Species
How to Catch Arctic Grayling: The Sailfish of the North
How to catch Arctic grayling — the jewel-like, sail-finned fish of cold northern and mountain waters, and one of the most eager fish to rise to a dry fly. Learn where they hold and how to fish flies, spinners, and ice tactics step by step.
Arctic Char, Species
How to Catch Arctic Char: The Complete Guide
Arctic char are the northernmost freshwater fish on Earth — spectacular, hard-fighting members of the char family. Here is how to find and catch them in rivers, lakes, and the sea.
Apache Trout, Species
How to Catch Apache Trout: The Complete Guide
The Apache trout is Arizona's golden native — a rare, beautiful, high-country trout and a conservation success story. Here's how to catch one.
American Shad, Species
How to Catch American Shad: Darts, Spoons & Tactics
The American shad — the 'poor man's tarpon' or 'freshwater tarpon' — runs up rivers each spring by the thousands and fights wildly on light tackle. Here's how to catch them with shad darts, spoons, and flies, plus the best rivers and timing.
Almaco Jack, Species
How to Catch Almaco Jack: The Complete Guide
The almaco jack is a deep-bodied, hard-fighting amberjack cousin prized on the jig and excellent on the table. Here is how to find and catch them.
Alligator Gar, Species
How to Catch Alligator Gar: The Freshwater Giant
The alligator gar is North America's largest freshwater fish — a 200-pound, armor-plated river monster. Here's how to rig for them, the best baits and spots, how to fight and land one, and how to release these slow-growing giants responsibly.
Albacore Tuna, Species
How to Catch Albacore Tuna: The Complete Guide
How to catch albacore tuna — the long-finned, hard-charging 'chicken of the sea' of the cooler blue water. Learn the troll-and-bait-stop game, reading temperature breaks, jigs and feathers, casting surface iron, live bait, and how to bleed your catch.
African Pompano, Species
How to Catch African Pompano: The Complete Guide
The African pompano is a powerful, deep-bodied jack that haunts wrecks and reefs and pulls like a freight train. Here is how to catch these hard-fighting fish.