If you’re anything like me, as soon as the sun comes out, so too does your fishing rod. After all, as fishing nuts everywhere will tell you, the only thing better than fishing, is fishing in the sunshine. To tell you the truth, the thought of it alone has me hankering for the long summer days ahead. Not that you can really blame me for that. Sure, the other seasons have a lot going for them as well. Ice fishing up Lake of the Woods way is a life-affirming experience. As is trout fishing on Montana’s Madison River when spring is in the air. But, even still, there’s just something about summer fishing that sets it apart from the rest.

Appreciating that something is special is one thing. Pinpointing what makes it so; quite another. Who knows, maybe the promise of cloudless skies and warm waters makes summer fishing special. On the other hand, maybe it’s reconnecting with youthful riverbank adventures that are the key. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s that you can barely move for all the fish shoaling off America’s coast at this magical time of year. Could that be it? Part of me certainly thinks so. Another part of me, however, isn’t so sure. This part of me, my skeptical half, refuses to accept that the allure of summer fishing can be reduced to one thing and one thing alone. This part of me, you see, prefers to think of it as a personal patchwork of undimmed memories, endless evenings, and, lest we forget, jumbo-sized hauls.

But enough with the philosophical mumbo jumbo already. You’d probably like to know where you can experience the best that summer fishing has to offer, right? Well, for starters, you can’t go wrong with a summer trip to San Diego. What’s more, the same can be said for Cape Cod and North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Meanwhile, those of you who like to fish on the wild side might be tempted by the Kenai River’s bumper stocks of king salmon. Effectively, what I am saying, is that you can find great summer fishing all around the country. And we should all thank our lucky stars for that.