Introducing My Friends Part 2: Captain Kevin Long

I met Captain Kevin close to a decade ago, and we’ve been good friends ever since. It was with Kevin that I filmed our “Out of the Water and Into the Kitchen” television show pilot. While this was a show featuring walleye fishing on the Detroit River, it was actually on a bass boat while fishing the world famous Lake St. Clair for smallmouths where we felt most at home. Continue reading

Respected Colleagues and Good Friends

As a full-time fishing guide, I have been lucky enough to have fished with many other Captains and guides around the state of Michigan as well as the country. Over the years, I have built a great network of colleagues and fantastic friends in the industry, and I am happy to be able to share a few of the Michigan Captains with my guests to Sport Fish Michigan. Continue reading

Unseasonably warm

I love spring. I also love summer. If it’s nice and warm out, I’m a happy guy. Normally. I’m not exactly sure what all of the reasoning is—changing climate, rotating jet stream, freak weather—or some combination of everything, but what I do know is that we seem to have bypassed a normal spring here in northern Michigan, and gone right to summer. Mid 80’s weather and full sun in mid March? I would have said that would have been the case if we were down south, but not up here in the northern Lower Peninsula! Continue reading

Swimbaits and their clear water connection

One of the perks of bass fishing in the ultra-clear waters of northern Michigan is that we get to fish with visual bait styles. One of my all-time favorite presentations are swimbaits. There are a huge variety of swimbaits on the market. Just to name a few:

Soft bodied styles like the Jerry Rago, Sebile’s Magic Swimmer, and Castaic.

Hollow-bodied styles such as the Basstrix swimbait (which started the whole hollow body craze), Strike King’s Shadalicious, Berkley Hollowbelly, and the Bass Magic. Continue reading

Indispensable tools

As a full-time fishing guide, it’s very possible (and some would argue, inevitable), that I’m going to experience a mechanical breakdown. I try to meticulously maintain everything that I can on the boats and, despite my best efforts, at some point I know something will go awry. However, we don’t need to be up the proverbial creek when this does happen. One important aspect of proper maintenance is ensuring that when things do go wrong, they aren’t the catastrophic mechanical breakdowns that can be costly and even dangerous. A cheap enrollment in a towing program with Boat US is a great idea. I enroll in their services myself, in case should I find the need to call for a tow while out on the water, or even when I’m towing my boats. Continue reading

Sport Fish Michigan

I recently launched a new web site, SportFishMichigan.com, and I’m ecstatic to report that the results are just what I was hoping that they would be. The internet is playing a larger and larger role in growing businesses, and with so much social media to keep up with, and ever-changing optimization priorities on search engines, it’s crucial to keep up-to-date in order to capture as much web traffic as possible. Where print ad was once king in attracting customers, the internet now is the new preferred medium for many advertisers. Continue reading

Snow, Snow, Snow!

The Traverse City area, and the surrounding northern Michigan areas got a whopper of a snowstorm just a few days ago. Yes, it’s March, and we’re all experiencing some serious cabin fever, ready to break out onto the water for some open water fishing. It is still winter, however, and this fact was proven by the massive snow we got this past Friday. 18.5 inches fell at my house on Friday night alone, with several more inches added over the weekend. Power was knocked out to much of the area, as was cable, Internet and phone lines. Continue reading

The Alabama rig (Umbrella rig) and smallmouth bass

As a full-time fishing guide, I try my best to stay on top of current trends, techniques and even tournament results when it comes to bass fishing. One technique that’s absolutely taking the bass fishing world by storm is the Alabama Rig. To those of you familiar to off- shore trolling techniques in salt water, you’ll know this rig as the umbrellas rig, which has been around for decades. Continue reading