Over the span of his professional fishing career, Spence, has authored many, many fine articles on the "How To's" of becoming a better angler. On this page you will find a sampling of some of those fine articles and tips that Spence is famous for. We hope you enjoy them!

Fishing Tips
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Fishing Articles

• Three Years, Three Eagle Lake Monsters! - A short diary of three exception fish on three diffrent trips!
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• Top Picks for Muskies - It seems like every body of water has at least a story or two about some giant muskies that lives there. It doesn't matter if the lake is 300 or 30,000 acres, a monster or two almost always exists. But putting all the hype and ignorance aside, where are the truly great muskie waters in North America. Here are some of my picks.
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• Best Fishing Trip in 25 Years! - Going out we grabbed the wrong gas tank for the portage to fish the river. The water in the tank got into the carburetor, and every time we went a few hundred yards our boat sputtered to a stop. Fishing was severally hampered that day, as we "only" caught 40 pike and 10 lake trout. But we didn't care. It was the last day of our 8 day trip to Northern Saskatchewan's Misaw Lake and we really needed a rest. By a conservative count, the four in our group caught between 7 to 8-thousand pounds of pike and lake trout! A 50-fish day was a welcomed relief.
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• "Jumbo Jigs" - A New Trend in Jigging
  Forget about "finesse" all the time! Savvy jig anglers are going to 5/8 to 1 1/2 ounce jigs to trigger strikes, and to achieve precision lure placement and absolute depth control.
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• Bass in the Slop
  You're bass fishing on a shallow, clear lake. It's after 9 a.m. and the hot sun is blistering the waters. All aquatic movement seems to have come to a halt. You haven't had a strike since the sun crept high enough to penetrate into the water. Time to go home? No way! You've got those bass right where you want them-in isolated areas of thicker cover.
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• 3 Spoon Techniques For More Pike
  Getting out-fished by someone in your boat is a humbling experience, but when that someone is a 13-year old, a jaw can get awful tight. At least I wasn't alone, as his father was also experiencing the same luck as I was having...watching the youngster catch 3-4 pike to our one. I couldn't figure it out. We were fishing wide, flat, shallow bays that had scattered pike, and after a while, identical spoons were on all three rods. There was no first cast into an area that was best, or some edge the youngster was fishing we didn't know about. Yet something was going on under the surface that we hadn't figured out.
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• Advanced Jigging Tactics For More Walleyes
  Without question, jigs have produced more walleyes than any other lure. They have been bounced along bottom, hung below floats and have even been retrieved at mid ranges for suspended fish. But no matter how good of a jig angler someone is, there are always skills to be sharpened and new tactics to learn.
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• Early Season Panfish
  Nothing but ice for the last two months and it was driving me crazy. A recent spurt of warm weather had opened up a few tributaries that flowed into a local river, and reports of some nice crappies being caught had filtered back to me. But that was a few days ago when a warm sun peaked out, now it was cold and windy. Regardless of conditions, I had to get out for an hour or two, the winter doldrums had taken their toll.
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• Early Season Smallmouth
  At last the water temperature was right for smallmouths. After two days of fishing for walleyes and pike during a spring warm trend, the water temperature finally hit the magic 55° mark in the shallow bay near camp. As we slowly motored toward a sheltered section of shoreline along the north bank of a large sandy bay, I felt that the fishless areas of the last two days should now harbor cruising, hungry pre-spawn smallies ready to slam into our lures. My partner thought I was crazy, wondering how a shallow flat area that was barren of fish for several days, could suddenly come alive by having a water temperature increase of only a few degrees.
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• Slip Float Basics
  During the last few years many fishing magazines have had numerous high-tech articles on float fishing. But while recently thinking about putting some material together for my upcoming fishing schools, one of my golden rules came to mind, "don't assume anything about what you think anglers know--start with the absolute basics and go from there".
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Spence Petros catches Monster Musky!

During a July trip to Ontario's Eagle Lake, Spence Petros caught and released one of the monsters that has made this body of water one of the premier big musky lakes in North America. He was fishing one of his favorite spots that just about always holds a large musky. The conditions were perfect. It was just before dark, a storm was moving in from the west, and in the far distance lightning was crackling in the sky. The day's fishing had been tough, with only a couple follows and no strikes.

"I was about three casts from having to get off the lake when the big female engulfed a Bucher TopRaider surface lure about 30-feet from the boat, says Spence. "Water flew all over and I instinctively set the hook and kept the rod low. After a deep, bulldogging fight the big fish came to the surface. My partner holding the net momentarily froze, but me yelling 'net it' kicked him into gear and he slid the trophy into my big Beckman net. With me on this event were net-man Mike Zielonka, and outdoor writer/columnist Steve Sarley. The monster was 53½ inches long (with a chewed up tail; and I didn't pinch it together), and it weighed over 40-pounds."

Spence heads up a group of angler to fish Eagle Lake every year in later July, and stays at North Shore Lodge (best place on the lake). Many anglers take the chartered bus that starts out of Chicago, but it has pick-up points along its route to the great north. For more information on joining Spence and sitting in on the nightly seminars call 1-800-976-9779, or visit his website (www. northshorelodgeontario.com). Also great walleye and pike fishing!