Week 1 (Jan) - "Okeechobee bass"

On Florida’s largest lake – and nowadays nearly the shallowest – Shaw casts for bass with jointed swim baits. These big shad imitations work through thin water with ease, no hangups, and although designed to attract trophy fish they still take plenty of bass of all sizes. Shaw fishes with Okeechobee guide Steve Daniel, who shows just how good his waters can be.

Week 2 (Jan) - "Space Center reds"

What wouldn’t you give to go fishing for big reds in near-virgin waters? Shaw does just that, and does it in sight of the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center. Security is tight and so are the nether parts of your anatomy when you tie into reds that have grown old and fat without ever seeing a lure cast their way. It’s a wilder ride by far than anything over at Disney.

Week 3 (Jan) - "Lake Ontario bass"

If you can find a better game fish, and a better place to catch them, than smallmouth bass in eastern Lake Ontario, well, you’d be wise to keep your discovery a secret. The clear waters on the shallow bays of this huge lake give Shaw, and the camera, a perfect window on the bass and their rocky, weedy habitat. Shaw shows how to pick the best spots and fool the biggest fish.

Week 4 (Jan) - "Indiana Bass"

Now here’s a place that’s hardly ever seen an angler. At the Victoria International Golf Club near Evansville, Indiana, a series of fertile bass-choked ponds fits between the fairways like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, green and blue-green and fringed with bright flowers. Only now is the club opening these waters to fishing, and Shaw gives viewers a first envious look.

Week 5 (Jan) - "Rhode Island Stripers"

In early summer migrating striped bass move into the warming waters of Narragansett Bay, where another force of nature, charter captain Jim White, checks his tide tables and heads out to intercept them. Shaw’s aboard too with nothing but his freshwater bass tackle, including his favorite bass-bug fly rod. From the rolling deck he does battle with dozens of big stripers.

Week 6 (Feb) - "Chaumont Bay Bass"

Clear water, two kinds of bass and plenty of both, enough wind to keep half-hearted anglers back on shore – no wonder Chaumont Bay is one of Shaw’s favorite fishing holes. Chaumont is wide-open, shallow water at the eastern extreme of Lake Ontario in New York. Pursuing bass here is a bit like going after flats species in the tropics – hunting as much as fishing.

Week 7 (Feb) - "Falcon Lake largemouths"

The U. S.-Mexico border winds right up the middle of Falcon Reservoir, so the bass angler can launch his boat in Texas and yet spend the day fishing for typical Mexican trophy largemouths. It’s plunking big weedless jigs, mainly, in flooded brush armored with thorns, then laying back on a stout rod to lever your “hog” out of the tangles. Shaw shows how it’s done.

Week 8 (Feb) - "Crystal River Redfish"

Captain Steve Kilpatrick is a world-renowned tarpon guide with a world record to his credit. But when the tarpon aren’t around, Steve is equally adept at finding reds in the shallow water grass flats and oyster bars near Crystal River, Florida. The action is fast as Shaw and Steve find reds and catch them on spinnerbaits. Great instruction and beautiful underwater.

Week 9 (Feb) - "Traverse Bay Smallmouths"

On a springtime trip to Lake Michigan, Shaw enjoys sight-fishing in clear water for trophy smallmouth bass, his favorite kind of fishing. He shares his tournament-winning techniques in a one-on-one presentation to the viewer. The payoff is the biggest smallmouth of this career.

Week 10 (March) - "Sugar Lake Largemouths"

The angler looking for big bass, and lots of them, couldn’t do better than a trip to Sugar Lake, just a few miles below the Mexican border. This close-by hideaway is more productive than many of the gringo-magnet lakes much farther south. A ten-inch plastic worm is just the ticket for Sugar’s grande largemouths, as Shaw and his pal Bruce Essig prove.

Week 11 (March) - "Delta Reds"

Redfish abound in the dark channels that wind through the canebrake of the Mississippi Delta. But the fishing can be a puzzle because of tropical storms that march through, roiling the water. In the wake of a three-day blow, Shaw’s young guide Michael Frenette finds the solution.

Week 12 (March) - "Amistad Spinnerbaits"

The wind is gusting to 40mph, it’s bitter cold as a cold front arrives and who in their right mind would even be on the water, let alone catching fish. Shaw shows you how it’s done on Lake Amistad in Texas—slow rolling spinnerbaits deep in the pondweeds.

Week 13 (March) - "Chokoloskee Snook"

You make a perfect cast into a six-inch opening under the mangrove. A couple of twitches of the bait and the water explode as a snook reacts. This is the reward for making your way into the maze, the myriad of narrow creeks leading to open bays that comprise the wilderness waterways of the Everglades National Park. Shaw and Capt. Andrew Bostick show you how it’s done and even throw in a surprise visit from a goliath grouper.

 

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