With streams and rivers beginning to clear, lake levels falling to near-normal levels, and water temperatures in the 60s, fishing conditions are improving rapidly.
Now is the time to go fishing. Here’s some gear to make your fishing trips more enjoyable and productive:
Tyepro
This handy fishing tool, produced in two models by Topnotch Innovations, LLC, of Columbus, Ohio, makes it easy to thread the small eyelets of jigs and flies with cold hands, in the rain, wind, low light conditions or rocking boat. Its design is similar to a clothes pin.
Here’s how it works:
Squeeze the Tyepro and its jaws open. Insert the lure eyelet into a slot, and spring tension holds the lure or fly in position, freeing the angler from holding it while threading its eyelet and tying a knot. A funnel in the jaws of the Tyepro directs line through the lure eyelet.
The original Typepro works with 2-pound to 20-pound test monofilament, fluorocarbon and heavier braided lines. The Typepro Fly & Ice is designed for smaller jigs and flies that require light lines, and fly leaders with tippet sizes down to 8X (line diameter 0.003, 1.75-pound test).
Spin the tool between your fingers while holding onto the line and its tag end to create the twist and loop needed to tie a clinch or improved clinch knot. Once the line is tied, remove the lure or fly from the Tyepro, and snug the knot. Then clip off the tag end of the line with the built-in stainless steel clipper.
The Tyepro sells for $14.99, and includes a break-away lanyard. To order online visit their website.
Frabill Min-O-Life Personal Bait Station
It’s no secret that live bait catches more fish. Keeping minnows cool and aerated during warm weather is easy with the Frabill Min-O-Life Personal Bait Station.
Ideal for fishing from the bank, or from a boat that isn’t equipped with an aerated bait well, the Frabill Personal Bait Station keeps bait fresh for catfish, striper, crappie or walleye fishing. It’s so small it won’t take up room in fishing kayak or cartop johnboat. Its hard shell cooler design, with an 8 quart capacity, keeps water and bait cool, even on sunny afternoons.
A lift-out net liner eliminates need for a minnow dip net. The water is kept aerated with a quiet Frabill model 1423 portable aerator, powered by two D-cell batteries.
The Frabill Min-O-Life Personal Bait Station sells for $52.99. Visit their website.
Sebile Action First Bull Minnow
Bass anglers have a soft spot in their hearts for hard-plastic jerk baits. They have a sexy wiggle that bass can’t resist.
The Sebile Action First Bull Minnow is a floating/diving crankbait with a low center of gravity and high buoyancy that can be jerked aggressively or cranked fast.
This new lure, which comes in two models — the 4-inch, 1/2-ounce and 5-inch, 3/4-ounce — tracks true and dives 2-to-5-feet, depending on the retrieve. One bead in the body of the lure makes a clacking noise when the lure is fished with a “stop and go” retrieve.
The lures range in price from $5.59 to $7.99 and come in 10 colors, including: Firetiger, Smokin’ Black Shad, Smokin’ Blue Chrome, Spotted Grey Shiner, Black Chrome, Bone Parrot, Chartreuse Tiger, Dark Blue Chrome and Eruption. Buy online here. Search Bull Minnow.
Don’t miss out on some of the best fishing of the year. Get out there on the water and have some fun.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.