You’re going to need a few things:
sharp knife (a fillet knife is best, but any thin sharp knife will do)
clean running water
plastic bags
cooler with crushed ice (best option, if possible)
The first time I had a fish on my line, my heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. When its you and your fish, the important thing is to breath and keep your cool. Many things can go wrong at this point, but if you do everything right, you might just bring that fish to hand or net.
Understanding what drives fish is the key to finding them in whatever body of water you may be fishing.
Fish have five basics needs. Locate places that meet these needs and you will soon be on to fish:
So, you bought your new spinning rod and reel. Now you need to know how to use it. Find a grassy place to practice (stay away from any surface that will tear up your line, like pavement or asphalt.)
STEP 1
First assemble your outfit. Tie on a practice plug, with an improved clinch knot (cheap way to keep the hooks out of you and others while you learn), and set the drag.
The drag mechanism on your reel is designed to allow you to set how much resistance a fish feels when it pulls on the line.
Drag is measured in pounds. The tighter you set the drag, the more resistance the fish feels.
STEP 1: Assemble the rod sections
If your rod is a one piece, move on to step two. Putting the rod sections together properly, extends the life of your rod.
Loading your line correctly is of supreme importance. Do this wrong and you’ll set yourself up for a line-twist nightmare later. The line twists into coils when it should hang limp, causing your line to tangle into an ugly nest when you cast… If, for whatever reason, you need to do this yourself, this is how its done:
In your fishing career, you will very likely learn many knots. But, you’ll be using these two knots from day one. They are indispensable. Let’s go over some knot tying terminology before we begin.
What you need is a good all-around outfit to get you started. This outfit should be fun to catch small fish with, yet have enough backbone to reel in the bigger ones as well. It won’t be perfect, but it will be pretty close.
All fish have senses. They, like you and me, can tell what’s happening around them through their sense of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste, plus a few others senses we don’t have.
Fishing with bait can be simple or it can be complicated. Personally, I prefer simple. If the idea of handling worms bothers you, you should skip directly to the post on lures.
Fishing with lures has many advantages:
Lures are less messy than bait.
Lures gut hook fewer fish (gut hooking is when the fish takes the hook deeply, or even completely swallows the hook).
Lures allow you to cover more water, even from shore or a pier.
You can target the species you are after more efficiently with lures.
Lures are easy to change out.
Besides live bait, there are various prepared baits you can use. Some of them are commercial baits and others you can prepare yourself with some experimentation. Let’s go over some of these baits and how you can use them.
Fishing with bait can be simple or it can be complicated. Personally, I prefer simple. If the idea of handling worms bothers you, you should skip directly to the post on lures.
Now that you understand the rod and reel, its time to get to know what goes on the end of your line.
Terminal Tackle: hook, weight, swivels, floats, lures and other tackle that can be attached to the end of your line.
The next important part of your fishing outfit is your reel. There are two categories of reels; spinning reels and fly reels. Fly reels are for fly fishing, and fly fishing is a different animal altogether. For now, lets stick to spinning reels.
There are 3 types of reels:
So you want to get started fishing, but don’t know anything about rods, reels, line or terminal tackle. You don’t know what terminal tackle is, you say? Not to worry. I’m going to break it all down for you. I’m going to explain basic tackle to you: what it’s called and what it does.
Let’s start with the basic fishing rod:
