I've spent more than a decade chasing the fish of 10,000 casts across the Great Lakes, Wisconsin lakes, and Ontario rivers, and I can tell you from experience: landing a trophy musky starts with the right lure in your hand. Muskellunge are apex predators that demand oversized, heavy-duty presentations with sharp treble hooks, distinct vibration, […]

Building your own fishing rod is one of the most rewarding projects an angler can take on. I have spent the last several months testing the best rod building kits on the market, from complete all-in-one packages to individual wrapping stations, and the differences are significant. Whether you are looking for a best fly fishing […]

I've spent the last three fishing seasons chasing snook from everything from my kayak to the back decks of charter boats, and I can tell you the right snook lures make the difference between a frustrating skunk and a cooler full of linesiders. Over 90 days and roughly 180 hours of testing across Florida's Gulf […]

I spent 45 evenings on piers, wharves, and charter boats testing every squid jig on this list across three months. After hauling in 312 squid, losing 14 jigs to snags, and burning through more coffee than I care to admit, I can tell you which of the best squid jigs on Amazon actually land fish […]

I keep a telescopic rod in my truck year-round. That habit came from a 4 AM detour at a farm pond during a Colorado road trip, when my one-piece rod was back at the hotel and the bass were crushing topwater. Since then, our team has spent over 60 days field-testing 8 of the best […]

I still remember the first fish I ever caught - a scrappy bluegill that hit a worm I had dangled off my grandfather's old Zebco 33. That push-button click, the easy tangle-free cast, and the bite alert beeping like a tiny victory bell - it's the kind of memory that turns into a lifelong love […]

Few things beat the feeling of pulling into a roadside river or arriving at a remote mountain lake and realizing you have a rod ready to go. That is the exact scenario that sent me searching for the best travel fishing rods money can buy. I have spent the better part of two years testing […]

There's nothing in fishing quite like watching a largemouth absolutely destroy a lure on the surface. Over the past three seasons, our team has thrown every type of topwater bass lure you can think of across lakes, rivers, and ponds to figure out which ones actually produce. Finding the best topwater lures for bass means […]

Spending a full day wading a trout river without the right vest means fumbling through bags, dropping fly boxes in the current, and wasting precious fishing time. After testing 8 of the best trout fishing vests over three months on rivers across the country, I learned firsthand what separates a great vest from a frustrating […]

Every trout angler eventually learns the same hard lesson: landing a fish by hand costs you trout. Whether you fish gin-clear tailwaters or tumbling mountain creeks, the best trout landing nets do one thing that bare hands cannot. They protect the slime coat that keeps trout healthy after release. Our team has spent the last […]